Stardust (2007)

A young man enters a magical world through a hole in a wall, a wall that appears to him to just be between two fields. What he discovers is a nearby town with a market and a beautiful enslaved princess that he makes love to before going back to his home in the village. Nine months later a baby is delivered to him - it's his son Tristan (Charlie Cox).
Tristan grows up to work in shop, but not be a shop boy. He is smitten with the local pretty girl, Victoria (Sienna Miller) who is only pretty and lacks the depth to ever be Tristan's true love. Meanwhile, the other side of the wall, in the kingdom of Stronghold, the King (Peter O'Toole) is dying and comes up with a way to choose a successor, and this results in a falling star, Yvaine (Claire Danes) coming to earth. Through comic misunderstanding, Tristan ends up the first person to come upon Yvaine, but not the last - the evil witch Lamia (Michelle Pfeiffer) is searching her out, because if she can consume her heart, she can become immortal. The last of the King's sons, Septimus (Mark Strong) is also looking for the fallen star and the stone which she carries which just happens to be the symbol of the King of Stormhold.
Tristan and Yvaine have a string of comically off-beat adventures that sees them each time narrowly escaping death and eventually falling in love.
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What a charming little film. I'm not sure how this one slipped past me. Fantasy? Check. British? Check. Neil Gaiman? Check. Well known actors playing quirky characters? Check.
I literally knew nothing about this film before my favorite librarian handed me the box. And then all I knew was that Michell Pfeiffer was in it. If I had been wearing my glasses, I would have seen that on the cover is also Robert De Niro and Claire Danes. I'll watch anything De Niro or Danes are in, and the two together, well even better. I had actually kind of been putting this one off, because I'd never heard of it, and reading the back of the box (without looking again at the front) I wasn't sure I wanted a film about "celestial love, and a pure-hearted hero". Obviously I stopped reading at that point and never got on to the part about it featuring De Niro. Once I popped the disk in and heard the dulcet tones of Sir Ian McKellan as our narrator, I knew I was in for a fantastic movie. Because of there is one actor that trumps De Niro and Danes, it's McKellan. (In full disclosure, there are several actors that trump De Niro and Danes - Ewen McGregor, Patrick Sewart, Hugh Jackman and Helen Mirren spring to mind, but they're my A+ list, while De Niro and Danes are on my A list, and to be honest, they're both pretty close to the top of the A list.)
I love fantasy movies that keep a sense of humor about them. Hell, that's the only reason I made it passed the first Pirates of the Carribbean movie. (Again, in full disclosure, Jonny Depp is on my A list so I'll watch his films even if they're not quite my cup of tea.) The Captain Shakespeare character played by De Niro is hilarious, if a bit over the top, but what makes it work is that De Niro seems so earnest in his portrayal of this character that at one point I can actually see him saying to himself, "How would Robin Williams plays this?" and then he does that. More brilliantly cast, and funnier in my opinion is Ricky Gervais as the lightning black marketeer. Oh, and the ghosts of the dead princes are pretty funny - very Terry Pratchett, and I mean that in the most complimentary kind of way.
New to me was the young hero, played by Charlie Cox. I don't know what else he has done, but now that gives me something to look into and find new films to watch.
The special effects for this film were quite decent. I guess I assume that if something flies under my radar that it must be a smaller studio or indie film, both of which tend to mean low budget. But this was not the case for Stardust. It was a top quality A list movie from beginning to end.