This little cherub grows into Tristan (Charlie Cox), the befuddled young hero of "Stardust." Tristan makes the mistake of falling in love with Victoria (Sienna Miller), a sort of Paris Hilton for the 18th-century set, who notices a shooting star one evening and demands that Tristan retrieve it in order to win her affection. Since public transportation would obviously be implausible at this stage of European history, Tristan arrives at the star's crater by means of a magical teleportation candle left to him by his mother.
There he discovers that the star in question is not a lump of rock but a gorgeous blonde named Yvaine (Claire Danes) who emits a silver glow and likes to stay up late.To make it home, Tristan and Yvaine must first contend with a menagerie of fantastical personages, including, but by no means limited to: the evil witch Lamia (Michelle Pfeiffer), who wants to devour Yvaine's heart in order to acquire eternal youth; the upstart prince Septimus (Mark Strong), who is set on seizing control of the magical kingdom; and my personal favorite, a transvestite pirate named Captain Shakespeare (Robert De Niro), who flies around in a lightning-powered airship and dispenses free hairdressing tips to anyone who will listen.
I realize this all sounds a bit ridiculous, but nonetheless I found myself oddly captivated by "Stardust." It's not quite like any other fantasy film I've ever seen -- it doesn't dazzle the audience with solemn grandeur like "Lord of the Rings," or fall back on smirking self-reflexivity like the "Shrek" franchise. Instead, director Matthew Vaughn (who co-wrote the screenplay based on Neil Gaiman's cult novel) aims for something in between; his film synthesizes silliness and sincerity into a concoction that recalls the works of the Brothers Grimm, only with more pirates. There are plenty of laughs to be found in "Stardust," but they are of the earnest, guileless variety, and are often accompanied by moments of almost alarming tenderness -- lovers staring dreamily into each others' eyes, that sort of thing. Even the limp-wristed Captain Shakespeare is unexpectedly endearing; De Niro plays him not as some dumb cartoon character, but as a kindly old sailor who just happens to be homosexual.
There's a school of thought that says a good fantasy epic should stick to the basics -- an unlikely hero, a magical quest, a babe with a British accent and maybe a dragon or two for good measure. "Stardust" follows this simple formula, but builds around it a myriad of subplots so labyrinthine that it left my head spinning. Everybody in the film is out to get something: Tristan wants to win Victoria's heart, Lamia wants to eat Yvaine's, Septimus wants to beat his six brothers to their father's recently-vacated throne (and also wouldn't mind eating Yvaine's heart, just for the heck of it), and Yvaine herself just wants to go home.
There's no earthly reason why this tangle of pursuits shouldn't jam up into narrative chaos, but somehow, against all odds, Vaughn's directorial dexterity makes it work. The film is crammed with enough fantasy conventions to fill a Tolkien novel, but Vaughn attends to the material at an almost leisurely pace; clocking in at 128 minutes, "Stardust" hardly even breaks a sweat.
Movies this painstakingly sincere are a rare find lately. It is a film that borders perilously on the verge of unintentional parody -- it would be easy to sneer at the aw-shucks storybook quality of the whole enterprise, devoid as it is of sex, gore and other such staples of popular entertainment nowadays. Though it may not be for everybody, I suspect that "Stardust" will eventually find its deserved audience among hopeless romantics, Tolkien fans and cynical teens who wanted to see "Live Free Or Die Hard," but walked into the wrong theater and didn't want to leave.
