Offsite Stardust Reviews
by
AICN made its bed by getting people who got into test screenings to write reviews they could publish, leaking plots and starting the ball on early negative press. Studios hate the negative press because it's usually accurate, in that the film people are writing bad reviews for typically suck. Rarely have I seen these kinds of reviews that were positive help a film in any way.Most reviews for Hostel 2 were gooey and full of much ass kissing, yet the film did pretty poorly at the box office. Roth blamed piracy, I blame Roth, but whatever. So if there are early reviews to be found, they inevitably collect at AICN, such as a couple of new ones for Stardust.
Right off the bat, this is not the movie I was thinking of when I ran across this set of reviews. Stardust appears to be a period/fantasy film, with a lot of big name actors in it. For some reason, I thought this was supposed to be a science fiction film, which turns out to be called Sunshine. Shit.
Couldn't possibly be two more different films. This is Stardust.
From the imagination of best-selling author Neil Gaiman and director Matthew Vaughn comes "Stardust," the enchanting tale of a fallen star who crashes into a magical kingdom - and turns out to be no ordinary meteorite at all, but a beautiful imperiled woman chased after by an incredible array of seekers who want or need her secret powers. From wicked witches to power-mad princes, from flying pirates to dueling goblins, each person who encounters the star has his or her own agenda, but they all desire just one thing: her heart.
Awww, how can you not be warmed over by that massive run-on sentence at the beginning of that synopsis? It's so charming.
Seriously, if Neil Gaiman makes his fortune selling this stuff as books, perhaps it's better it stay as books. Then again, original romantic fairy tales may be just what the doctor ordered after this summers ridiculous overcompensating sequel nightmare.
Sunshine, on the other hand, is this.
It is 2057, and the Sun is failing, causing the Earth to enter an ice age. A spacecraft, the Icarus II, with a crew of eight, is launched as a last hope,[2] carrying a massive bomb with a thermonuclear payload equivalent to the mass of Manhattan in order to re-ignite the Sun. Seven years prior, a similar ship, Icarus I, was launched for the same mission, but contact was lost.
I'll be honest here, Stardust sounds more interesting than Sunshine does, even though I dislike fairytale romance flicks, and dig all over science fiction. The plot has me gasping for air through all the bullshit, and I've only copied the first paragraph. That's not a good sign, is it?
The idea that the Sun is crapping out in 2057 means that in this films fictional reality, it's either about four billion years older than ours is, or it is dying four billion years too soon. Yeah, these things tend to live about eight billion years or so, and we're half way through the life of ours - so says the science book in Ash's trunk.
I'd also note that even if you could compress enough uranium to a size manageable enough to physical fit inside the largest rocket ever built, that doesn't change its mass, and therefore in a gravity field, its weight. If it weighed as much as Manhattan, you'd need a rocket capable of lifting Manhattan to get it off the ground. You'd also need enough conventional explosives to detonate it, and at that density and/or size, even that would be more than you could fit on a Saturn IV - all by itself.
I know, it's fiction, so you can take liberties to entertain. But that's just silly, and silly keeps me from becoming involved with the story. If flaws exist this bad that I can see just by sniping the synopsis, then you know there are going to be dozens of smaller ones creeping about in act 3.
Well, wow, I just ranted there, didn't I? I know what you're thinking right now. WHERE'S THE STUPID ****ING INTERVIEW?!
Why, it's right here. Thanks for sticking with me, it's always a pleasure, here, have an excerpt and a donut and quit your bitchin'.
De Niro steals every scene he's in. There's nothing else to say about it. You love his character and cant take your eyes off his character every time he appears. Pfeiffer plays the evil witch to a T. She really got into the role and was perfect casting, beautiful, deadly, and aging. Ive always heard actors say its a lot of fun playing the bad guy, and this defiantly holds true for Pfeiffer playing Lamia.
The strory flowed very well, it never seemed to get boged down, there were enough story lines to always be moving forward, but not to many to where you couldn't keep track of what was going on. There was some great comic relief moments in the form of the princely ghosts and a brief scene from Ricky Gervais. Lamias sisters also provided some great scenes with dark comedy. The movie also contains one of the most inventive sword fight scenes ive seen to date. The effects were very good and believable. If you sit and analyze I'm sure you'll find flaws, but it was never to a point that it took you out of the movie.
I really don't understand why people don't take a few seconds, expending a bare minimum of effort, to at least spell check things they know are going to be posted where other people - presumably those who know how to spell - can see it. It's not like running spell check takes effort, OpenOffice Writer knows what the right spelling is 99% of the time anyway. It doesn't take that much effort to look like you graduated grade school, you know?
I'm not talking about busting balls here, but there's simply no excuse for writing "ive". There just isn't.
