Stardust (DVD)

Stardust was supposed to be the next Princess Bride, but I liken it more to a turd with glitter on it. Why so harsh? Let's start with the plot:

There's a walled-off magical universe within a small town in England. One day, a teenage boy sneaks through the wall gate and screws a "princess" who's being enslaved by a witch to be a cashier at a bazaar of some sort. He leaves, and 9 months later, a baby is left at his doorstep. That baby becomes our hero, Tristan (Charlie Cox). Tristan is a loser who's in love with a beautiful but vapid girl, Victoria, who has no interest in him whatsoever.

Meanwhile, the king from this magical universe is on his deathbed, and wants to ensure a successor, but he has too many kids, and they're not murdering each other quickly enough, so, naturally, he takes a ruby amulet and throws it magically at the sky, where it hits a star and then falls back down to earth. He says whoever finds the amulet will be the next king, and then dies. Of course, our promiscuous princess was the king's daughter, and so our hero Tristan is royalty, but no one knows it!

Anyway, Tristan manages to coax Victoria out for a late picnic, where she tells him that she's going to marry some douchebag because he's going all the way to the next village to buy her an expensive ring. Then Tristan sees the falling star, and he makes Victoria promise she won't go through with the marriage if he retrieves the fallen star for her. Tristan goes home, and his father reveals that he's actually from the magical universe and tells him that his mother left him a gift: a candle that . . . um . . . can teleport you wherever you want to go.

So, he takes the candle, thinks about the star, and appears in the crater (conveniently located in the magical universe). Instead of a hunk of celestial rock, he finds a pretty blond girl (Claire Danes) with a silver dress on (and a ruby amulet around her neck). She's the fallen star -- OK, are you still with me? -- and she was smacked out of the sky by someone. So Tristan enslaves her (which is alarmingly easy to do in this universe), and drags her on a leash back to his village, to give her to Victoria.

Meanwhile, a trio of old witches led by Michelle Pfieffer also sees the falling star, and decides to go after it. Why? Because, silly, everyone knows that if you cut out the heart of one of these star girls, then you can stay young and beautiful for a really long time. You see, the witches were almost all out of "star hearts" and needed to replenish their supply, lest they grow old and die.

So what you have is a classic scenario where Tristan's got what everyone wants (the amulet and the star) and gets chased mercilessly for the next hour.

There are, count 'em, at least six arbitrary and unexplained rules and/or abilities in the exposition alone! I didn't keep count, but there are several more absurd, strange rules that no one seems to know, and some doozies that make you wonder about the necessity of some of the action. The movie essentially plays out like it was written by a six year-old with attention deficit syndrome (but more predictably). It also doesn't help that it's directed like it's a stage show in Las Vegas, with a loud, grating soundtrack only Brian de Palma could love.

But the worst part of this movie is Robert DeNiro, who plays an airship pirate (No fantasy movie is complete without an airship!) who captures our fleeing duo and later helps them on their voyage. First of all, why can't he do a British accent? I mean, Clare Danes is doing it, and she's supposed to be a star, which shouldn't even have an accent (and I suppose, shouldn't be a human or know English either). Second, DeNiro's pirate captain is a transvestite, and man, does he play it flamboyant! He's a pirate, so he has to be manly all the time. But when he's alone he dresses up in a corset and sings pretty songs, and places a detachable mole on his cheek. It's all so over the top that it loops around into unfunny territory. Finally, DeNiro stewards the film through a painfully long montage where he teaches our hero how to become a fierce and technically gifted warrior in less than a week. Oh, and the three of them frolic and laugh and have other antics, all to Ilan Eshkeri's musical score-on-steroids.

The movie has flashes of originality and humor, but not enough to salvage it. I have to give it some credit -- the ghosts of the king's dead kids are pretty funny -- but that doesn't save it from the ridiculousness of the plot. I mean, come on, people. There are omnipotent witches who have telekinesis, can alter the environment, can enslave people, and can make things invisible -- but when they fight you, their method of choice is . . . a beam of warm light? No one's going to win a fight with a witch that has unbounded, unlimited powers. Well, there is one way: can someone say deus ex machina?