Stardust

Sunday, October 21st, 2007

Went to see Stardust last night with Kim and Darkdwarf a fantasy film with a definite sense of fun. It’s a meandering road trip round with a good mix of action, intrigue and romance but its real strength is its sense of humour. For once a film with a large contingent of British comedy talent deployed doesn’t devolve into a fourth rate Carry on Film. Mark Williams’ Billy is funny and physical; Ricky Gervais’ annoying qualities are put to good use and is suitably put upon for it; Dexter Fletcher’s pirate is roguish but modern; the various scheming princes are enjoyable. Alongside this supporting cast a couple of Hollywood stars are added to the mix in the form of Michelle Pfeiffer and Robert De Niro. Each brings an interesting, light hearted but memorable performance to the film. Claire Danes and Charlie Cox are good in the roles of the hero and heroine respectively.

The special effects were well handled melding nicely into the film without looking artificial. I was trying to figureout how some of them were were done. I don’t think Vue was used, the landscapes looked more like Terragen to me because they had the sparse treeless look but they might have been real landscapes filmed from aircraft and composited over too.

Jonathan Ross picked out the sound track for a little criticism on Film 2007. While it wasn’t inspired it wasn’t bad either it was just a rather ordinary fantasy film sound track.

A fun fantasy film film and well worth a couple of hours of your time.

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