Strangely wonderful and wonderfully strange, this surprising fantasy movie is a wonderful little movie going morsel of delight. While it might be a trifle unsteady at times, it is otherwise a fantastic fairy tale.

Writing: Based on well-known graphic novelist Neil Gaiman’s novel, and produced by him as well, this story is amusing, fun, adventurous and features a delightfully twisted sense of humor. You’ve seen elements of the story before in other genre films, but you’ve also never seen anything quite like the rest of it. The style of the film features a nice, timeless quality that helps sell much of the strangest aspects to the story. I mean, one of the main characters is a star that has fallen from the sky, played by Claire Danes (the star, not the sky).

Production: Lots of cool stuff to be found in terms of production. The visual effects are playful and cool, carefully walking that fine line between lavish fantasy and feeling realistic. Set design pulls off much of the same. Cinematography and sound design are solid and first rate, but not quite as playful.

Cast: Here’s a major highlight of this movie. The lofty and strange aspects of the characters must have attracted the cast to the characters. Claire Danes is, as always, fantastic. She plays a star, but not the kind of a star she’s traditionally used to portraying. Charlie Cox is well cast as the well meaning, naive hero of the story. Robert DeNiro gets to break some stereotypes in his fun role. And Michelle Pfeiffer gets to play one of three witches again (I was hoping they’d sneak in an Eastwick reference, but they didn’t). Other supporting roles are well cast with the likes of Rupert Everett & Peter O’Toole.

Music: Somewhat newcomer Ilan Eshkeri is somebody that director Matthew Vaughn must have brought with him to the project. Eshkeri pulls off a wild, playful and ambitious score, and he does it well. While only knocking off a couple piece of temp track (Including Bram Stoker’s Dracula and one or two others), it rollicks along with unrestrained fun. It might not be the greatest score of the year, but it’s still great. It matches the funny and fantastical nature of the film rather well.

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 12th, 2007 at 8:37 pm and is filed under Movie Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.