After watching Stardust last night and writing my quick review this morning, I decided to take a look at what other reviewers had to say.
Roger Ebert was his usual irascible, well though-out self. While he did not rate the film as highly as I would (only 2.5 where I would give a 3 or 3.5), he seems to have liked the same things that I did. Unlike me, he did see fit to criticize a few elements. His primary issue with the film is that it gets so busy… but that’s what I enjoyed. I suppose that the true test will come, as Ebert mentions at the end of his review, in whether or not I will enjoy watching this film again.
My major argument comes with Plugged-In.
Now, I have spent many years reading the reviews over at Plugged-In, and I have mixed feelings about them. The entire basis of Plugged-In’s claim to being a worthy source is that they take a hard look at the morals of a film. That can get messy. I say messy because where one person might see harmless fun, another might see depravity… and where one might see weak characters and simplified plots, another might see moral clarity.
So, forgive me if I differ with them here…
“This stuff is about as nourishing as cotton candy”
Of course. It is a silly romantic comedy.
“It smiles compassionately at homosexual behavior (even as it stereotypes it).”
Frankly, the humor of Robert Deniro’s character comes not from “compassionate” homosexuality or the exploitation of stereotypes, but from the irony of a man who enjoys dressing hair and dancing having to play at being a rough and tough pirate to keep the family business running.
“It deems death funny. And the afterlife funnier.”
I’ll give you that people do die rather casually in Stardust, but no more so than in a Hitchcock movie or many a classic slapstick comedy (how many people would have died at the hands of the Three Stooges without the wonder of slapstick physics?). And for heaven’s sake, this is a fantasy movie. If we are going to accept the evil witches and stars that look like people without question, why need we question some ghosts who wait around to see who takes the throne? It is worth mentioning that the film draws a distinct line between the real world and the fantasy realm of Stronghold. A key plot element is that simply crossing the wall causes a change in the rules of reality… changes stars from living beings to hunks of rock.
“Stardust is a movie all about heart. But it has very little of its own … and even less morality.”
I will give you that it is very casual and lacks the true depth of heart that might make it a classic, but to say that it it bereft of heart and utterly devoid of morality is absurd. Indeed, the lines between good and evil in Stardust could not be more clear.
I seriously need to take some time in the next few weeks and write up my theories of “moral” film and music reviews…
