Stardust (Matthew Vaughn, 2007)

I've never had a problem with being swept away into a magical land where the rules of real life cease to apply, a land bustling with unicorns, evil witches, dark magic and huge pirate airships. Each experience of this kind is usually the same adventure simply told in a slightly different way (and a good one), generally full of color, imagination and likeable characters.

Stardust, for the most part, lives up to the tradition of magical storytelling but also embraces the limitations that come along with it. A mostly predictable outcome that one can see coming from miles away, a greedy bunch of bad guys and very slight mystery. Most of the answers we get are obvious from the start, as is the straightforward and basic plot, but the adventure is still, again, for the most part, an enjoyable vacation from the real world.

The acting is sufficient, the pacing is up to par, with a rousing musical score and apparent humor, but the ambiguous world is barred further by a shoddy screenplay that falls apart. There isn't an outstanding quality inside of Stardust, and frankly it stops making sense, as do some of the characters. If it was meant to be a dreamy wonderland, clearly I'm left wondering why common sense stayed behind during some moments. This has been a sad fate for too many otherwise great films.

For what could've been a fascinating adventure of a dazzling alternate realm, Stardust fails to keep our eyes popping once our curiosity beckons us in for a taste of the appealing unknown. It is too confusing and hobbles itself, like a bad tour guide of this fantastical world.

I feel as though I was left at that doorstep, without a remarkable and rewarding sensation to take back home with me, left with naught but a copy of the novel to perhaps explain things better. Frankly, in the world of cinema, a film shouldn't have a fallback plan. Where is the solid translation of this story? Roger Ebert said it best: "There is a kind of narrative flow that makes you want to be swept along, and another that's just one thing after another." Major sequences should be efficient, or these filmmakers need to stop insulting our intelligence.