Stardust is a *****/***** (5/5)

Stardust is superb. It's a fairy tale, but unlike most fairy tales, it's not written by some old hack who has died half a century ago, but written in modern times (1998) by the famed writer Neil Gaiman. I admit I'm not much of a novel reader, and I've never read the novel itself, but the movie really is excellent.

It has all the good things you expect from a fairy tale, without the pitfalls of a fairy tale created in olden times. Old fairy tales were made for people of that time. The way its told, the kinds of magic and stuff that are in it, the story elements, all are conceived by by old day mentality and experiences. That's why though some of those stories are good, they never really "clicked" perfectly (for me, at least). You have to condition your mindset to the way the story's needs it to be. But with Stardust, there's no need for that. There aren't any of those little quirky things in the story that you never really "get" just because "that's what people back then used to do". It flows effortlessly without interrupting your enjoyment of the movie.

This Neil Gaiman guy must be really good. I look up for more of his work on IMDB, and found out that he is one the the screenplay writers for Beowulf. I wasn't really interested Beowulf when it came out, but after seeing Stardust, I'll surely make an effort to download it when a DVDRip of it emerges.