{"id":11420,"date":"2007-08-31T22:26:49","date_gmt":"2007-09-01T05:26:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/2007\/08\/31\/movie-review-stardust.html"},"modified":"2007-08-31T22:26:49","modified_gmt":"2007-09-01T05:26:49","slug":"movie_review_stardust","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2007\/08\/31\/movie_review_stardust.html","title":{"rendered":"Movie Review: Stardust<\/i>"},"content":{"rendered":"

My folks and Kitten and I went to Stardust tonight.  I’d had some concern<\/a> about the PG-13 production with Katherine, even though I’d read the book aloud to her and Margie on a long car drip.<\/p>\n

It was, during the movie itself, a bit intense for her (“Daddy — I didn’t really like the book that much”), but by the end she thought it had a wonderful happy ending, was a lot of fun (though “there was a lot <\/em>of killing”), and that we should get the DVD.<\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n
<\/div>\n

Stardust<\/a><\/em> (2007)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
Overall<\/strong><\/td>\n <\/td>\n Story<\/td>\n <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Production<\/td>\n <\/td>\n Acting<\/td>\n <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Story<\/strong>: Adapting a rich, imaginative tale from the pen of one of the great fantasy writers of our time into a two hour movie is going to be a thankless task, but Jane Goldman and Matthew Vaughn have done an excellent job.  There are numerous bits and pieces (and characters) that are cropped from the story, and others that are expanded far beyond the original (the lightning catchers as the most noteworthy element), but most of the choices are well done, and I left the theater not feeling at all cheated.<\/p>\n

Only afterward did I really find myself feeling that there had been something missing.  That was a sense of texture, of depth beyond the glorious prettiness.  Gaiman’s village of Wall is a living community — here it’s a facade with a handful of characters.  Similarly the world beyond the Wall is a panoply of fairy tale elements and kingdoms in the book — here it’s largely unpopulated save for the minimum needed to advance the to its conclusion.  Things and people exist in a vacuum, fabulous set pieces with nothing to connect them save a wonderful sound track and stirring photography.<\/p>\n

The growing relationship between Dunstan and Yvaine, for example, which grows naturally over time in the book, just seems to happen by shorthand here.  I understand why, just as I understand why the ending of the movie is probably the most radically altered and punched up from the book.  And enough other stuff is going on that it’s not too <\/em>annoying, certainly not during the tale. <\/p>\n

For an adaptation of a book, then, it was more than adequate. But I wouldn’t skip reading the book because of that.<\/p>\n

Acting<\/strong>:  Everyone does quite a nice job.  There’s nothing terribly stirring to it all, no Academy Award-winning roles to play.  But the actors and actresses, known and unknown, do a fine, enjoyable job of it — and look like they’re having a good time of it. <\/p>\n

Production<\/strong>:  Beautiful photography, loving landscapes, excellent music, and some wonderful special effects combine to make this a gorgeous film to watch and listen to. <\/p>\n

Overall<\/strong>:  Very nice movie, quite memorable, and one that I’ll want to watch many more times.   I’d have been willing to watch a film twice as long to get some of the parts that were cropped — but if Neil Gaiman himself is going to give it his nod of approval, I’m not going to criticize it too much.  I’m not sure it will be the warm fantasy classic of, say, The Princess Bride <\/em>— but I would encourage folks to go see it … and to be sure and read the book, too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My folks and Kitten and I went to Stardust tonight.  I’d had some concern about the PG-13 production with Katherine, even though I’d read the book aloud to her and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[41],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11420","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media-movies"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":11506,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2007\/08\/12\/considering_stardust.html","url_meta":{"origin":11420,"position":0},"title":"Considering Stardust","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 12-Aug-07 10:50pm","format":false,"excerpt":"For a variety of reasons, we didn't end up going to see (the\u00a0highly touted and much enjoyed as a book by me)\u00a0Stardust this weekend.\u00a0 One of the outstanding questions...","rel":"","context":"In "Books"","block_context":{"text":"Books","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/media-books"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10384,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2007\/01\/31\/kinda_sorta_stardust.html","url_meta":{"origin":11420,"position":1},"title":"Kinda-sorta Stardust","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 31-Jan-07 2:33pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Evidently Paramount's changed its mind as to how it wants the website for the movie of Neil Gaiman's Stardust to be focused. 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