retroBlog

why didn’t anyone inform me of how good the movie Stardust is? I overlooked it a while back, dismissing it as some sort of Lord of the Rings/Chronicles of Narnia rip-off. But the movie holds it own. in fact, I’ll place it near The Princess Bride in terms of classic fairy tale films. director Matthew Vaughn did a wonderful job in bringing to life a small 19th century village in England that just so happens to be situated next to a portal to a magical world called Stormhold. the story centers around Young Tristan who crosses over “the wall” in order to retrieve a fallen star for his love, Victoria. Tristan soon finds out that the fallen star is actually a beautiful girl named Yvaine who is being sought after by a witch and the son of the King of Stormhold. Claire Danes, Robert De Niro, Michelle Pfeiffer and Charlie Cox are all featured in the film. the film is a true joy to watch with a great story line and some well timed bits of humor sprinkled throughout. the movie isn’t perfect however and left me with a couple lingering questions -
1) why doesn’t Captain Shakespeare (Robert De Niro) have an English accent like everyone else in the movie? is this simply a De Niro thing or is there some backstory to the character’s american accent?
2) also, Michelle Pfeiffer’s accent comes and goes at random places. but she does a fantastic job otherwise.
3) why doesn’t Una (Tristan’s mother) look any older than she did back when she met Tristan’s father at the very beginning of the story?
4) even though Ian McKellen’s voice over explains that Tristan will live forever because he has Yvaine’s heart, why does he end up looking like an old man (in the deleted scene on the DVD) while Yvaine looks the same at the end of the story? shouldn’t Tristan not age as well?
5) I love Ricky Gervais but will he ever be able to act like someone other than Ricky Gervais? seemed like his role was tailor made just for him. or maybe the director simply just worked around Gervais’ limitations?

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