Stardust

The narrator (Ian McKellen) tells us that there is a city call Wall. It is named this because of the wall that is beside it. Apparently this wall is a separation between the magic world and the non-magic world.  Dunstan (Ben Barnes) gets fed up with the whole 'wall' thing and makes a break for it past the guard (David Kelly). He wanders into Market Town, in the magic world and meets Una (Kate Magowan), a slave to the witch Dishwater Sal (Melanie Hill). He tries to free her, but can't so instead they have sex and he goes home. Nine months later a baby is left for him. Years after that the baby is all grown up into Tristan (Charlie Cox) who is madly in love with Victoria (Sienna Miller), who doesn't care about him because he is only a shop boy. She loves (and is engaged to) Humphrey (Henry Cavill), though she still has Tristan wrapped around her littler finger, so much so he is fired from his job after he drops everything to do whatever she asks. For some reason he still takes her out for a midnight drink to show he still loves her.  They see a shooting star and he swears to her that if he brings her that star before her birthday (a week away) she'll marry him and not Humphrey. She agrees but we all know she's lying. Unfortunately he can't get past the guard. 

After Tristan gets home Dunstan (Nathanial Parker) tells him of his adventure and gives him a letter his mother left in his basket. Along with the note is a Babylon candle. Not knowing what it is, he lights it and it transports him directly to the star, because that was what he was thinking of. It turns out the star is Yvaine (Claire Danes). In the magic world stars are real people, and Tristan and Victoria weren't the only people to see it fall.  Three sisters Lamia, Empusa, and Mormo (Michelle Pfeiffer, Sarah Alexander and Joanna Scanlan) also saw the star and they were very happy to see it. They are witches and they can use the power of the heart of the star to sustain their beauty for hundreds of years. Using the last bit from the last star they grabbed, Lamia regains her looks and heads out on the hunt. 

So Tristan is dragging Yvaine back to Victoria and Lamia is on her way to find her, but there are more players in this story. In a kingdom far away lies a dying king (Peter O'Toole). He is waiting for his sons to come to him, because he has a slight problem. Apparently the only way to inherit the throne is to be the last man standing and there are still four. There are, or were at least seven brothers and one sister, the sister is unimportant for now because apparently only men can inherit the throne.  The seven brothers are collectively: Primus (Jason Flemyng), Secundus (Rupert Everett), Tertius (Mark Heap), Quartus (Julian Rhind-Tutt), Quintus (Adam Buxton), Sextus (David Williams) and Septimus (Mark Strong). Most are unimportant because after they die they become ghosts until that last male survivor is left, and the only way for them to inherit is to get the stone that the king throws into the sky that dislodges a star. (Yvaine) Only Primus and Septimus are really important, because they are the only two left alive to undertake the quest. And Primus doesn't last long because he stumbles in a trap that Lamia set for Yvaine and ends up dead.

Septimus realizes after that he is chasing a star and he immediately thinks: king forever and renews the chase. Tristan and Yvaine use the Babylon candle again to get away from Lamia and end up on a cloud and are picked up by a flying pirate ship. Well, I don't really think you can call them pirates because pirates attack other ships and steal their gold, here they just collect lightning to sell, so in reality they are providing a resource, not really looting anything. Anyway Captain Shakespeare (Robert De Niro) has a fierce and brutal reputation but in reality he is gay, which automatically means he is a fashion minded, cultured, non-athletic cross dresser...stupid movie. So as he brings them towards Wall he teaches Tristan how to sword fight and catch lightning and he teaches Yvaine the deadly art of kung fu. Kidding! That would have made too much sense. No he teaches her how to play the piano and how to waltz. I hate to point out a stupid fact but unless she is planning to defeat the witches in a dance off I  think the kung fu would've been much more useful in this situation don't you?

So on the way back to Wall Yvaine professes her love for Tristan then gets captured by Lamia when Tristan goes home to tell Victoria to go Hell, basically. Tristan and Septimus then team up to defeat the three witches, only it doesn't work out as well as planned...I don't even think they had a plan. Anyway Septimus dies, but have no fear for the kingdom, turns out Una, who is also there for some reason, is the king's daughter and the last male heir is Tristan. So yeah he gets to be king and get a star as a queen.  Who would have seen that coming?

So besides being stereotypical and predictable I had two major problems with this movie. One was the entire ending of the movie. Lamia had both Yvaine and Tristan at her mercy and that was the end of it but instead she lets them go and cries about how her sisters are dead and it doesn't matter anymore and then thirty seconds later laughs about how they were so easily fooled and tries to kill them again. Yvaine was tied up and Tristan was unarmed, that entire scene was completely pointless. But what was even worse was that after Lamia attacks again, Yvaine suddenly does this weird light thing to destroy the witch, I mean, you couldn't do that  when you were tied up? What changed between then and now so drastically that she couldn't destroy Lamia before? The fact that she's done nothing but bitch and complain the entire movie only made it more stupid.

The second thing that bothered me was that the witches only wanted their beauty back. Why do all female villains only care about their looks? If the star had sustained their power that would've been different but it only gave them their youth back because using magic eats away at their body. If they want to be beautiful then stop using magic, or if they have unlimited power why haven't they taken over the world, or at least tried to? It is just so aggravating watching potentially cool villainesses fall into the same old clichés. It is so disappointing. 

At least the acting and special effects were awesome or else this movie would've been un-enjoyable.

 Grade: 5.5/10