Movie: Stardust and the trailers before it.

Stardust-724388

As big a fan of Neil Gaiman that I am, I have never read Stardust. Unless I'm wrong, and I very well could be, it only came out in trade paperback form. And it came out at such a time that my love of Neil could not outweight the effect $20 would have on my budget.

My wife, however, did read Stardust. So it became a moral imperative to see the movie in the theater.

So, what did I think?

Overall, I liked it. I found it charming. It was a good movie, but not without its faults.

What's good? Michele Pfeiffer. I was never a big fan of her acting, but she really excells here. Her Lumia is evil through and through but Pfeiffer instills her with enough charm and character that almost wish she could win.

Charlie Cox is good as Tristan. Robert DeNiro is strong as Captain Shakespeare. And Siena Miller, and actress I don't like at all, has a role in which my dislike of her is a benefit instead of a detriment. Ricky Gervais was good in a cameo.

What were the faults? Well, Claire Danes and her "Kevin Costner School of Bad British Accents" accent as Yvaine. The accent was unnecessary (she was a star that fell from the sky, not one that took the bus from England) and spotty at best. Very distracting.

I would have liked better pacing, namely in the development of the romance between Yvaine and Tristan. The film gives their romance the typical "sniping adversaries" beginning that most movie romances start out with, but the love grows too quickly. You don't see why Yvaine's opinion of Tristan has changed.

Also, I caught at least one continuity error (when Pfeiffer is finding out from her sisters that some one else is chasing the couple, she goes from old to young to old again) and a lot of the movie was predictable. And there was a "Hollywood Ending" added (which doesn't follow with what I saw in the book) where the characters act illogically and slightly dumb to enhance the tension.

But overall, I would say I liked the movies as a whole. It's good elements overweighed the bad.

Now, the previews:

• The Golden Compass: Obviously, this trailer would be before Stardust, due to the similarities between the films.
• August Rush: This appears to be the story of a classical musician who get pregnant with the child of a rock star and then gives the baby up for adoption. The child grows up to be a musical prodigy and tries to find his parents. It seems like it's aching to be nominated for an Oscar, like many other films being released this year.
• Across the Universe: Again, this movie could be a great success or a miserable failure. It seems to be two movies at once: a straight forward linear story musical and a weird and trippy exercise in psychedelia. It would be interesting to see how the two reconcile.
• Elizabeth: The Golden Age: Elizabeth is back and she's pissed! Wow. The first Elizabeth was at once the move most unlikely yet most natural choice to get a sequel. After all, the first one only told part of her story but Oscar calibur movies usually don't get sequels all that often.
• The Spiderwick Chronicles: Another entry in the adapted from a book/kid's movie/kinda scary/world not what its seems genres. Any cast that features Mary-Louise Parker has promise, but the plot doesn't really get me. I'm not a big fan of kids in jeopardy.
• Beowulf: Yeah, I was going to go see this before I saw the trailer. Now I am definitely going to go see it. The movie uses the same CGI technology that The Polar Express did. It looks more realistic yet even creepier. Which might not be a bad thing for the movie.