Dust, Anyone? Dust?

How many miles to Babylon?
Three-score miles and ten.
Can I get there by candle-light?
Yes, there and back again.
If your heels are nimble and light,
You will get there by candle-light.

Nursery Rhyme

Finally caught Stardust in all it's big screen splendour. I've been waiting for the movie to arrive on our shores for so long. So very long, indeed.

I must admit, I had my reservations about the inevitable deviations the movie would make from the original Neil Gaiman/Charles Vess graphic novel that I love so much. Having now seen it, I can safely say that it wasn't as bad as I had feared it would be. No, siree. Not at all.

It was worse.

Take a charming modern fairy tale from one of the most acclaimed writers of the day and give it the Hollywood treatment, and what do you get? A farce.

Campy performances, crude humour, pointless action sequences, not-so-impressive special effects, angsty love, subtle lesbianistic tensions, not-so-subtle gay-gay-gay overtures, and a storyline that got sidelined by the need to keep the audience entertained, as only the Americans would want to be entertained, ie. with campy performances, crude humour, pointless action sequences, et cetera, et cetera.

They might as well throw in a Titanic moment, so cheesy it was. Oh, wait. They did!

Tristan screams, "I'm the king of the world!", not knowing words like these could earn him an untimely death, courtesy of murderous megalomaniac heirs to the kingdom.

Okay, it was rather funny and not too bad for a piece of fluff. But at the same time, my eyes just couldn't stop rolling and rolling. And rolling.

Guess I'm just totally anal when it comes to seeing a story I dearly love completely stripped of its original spirit.

When they glossed over the back story covering the little adventure had by Dunstan Thorn (protagonist Tristan's father) back when he was young and foolish, resulting in the arrival of Tristan, it was kind of groan inducing for me, but understandable. The focus was, after all, on Tristan's adventures, so this little 'creative license' they took was quite forgiveable. Halfway through the movie, however, the scriptwriters really began to let loose their lesser imaginations and turned Gaiman's beautifully crafted tale into a monstrous mockery. By the end of the movie, we were watching a completely different story altogether. Ah, the Midas touch of Hollywood - where a quiet, dignified ending would be sabotaged into a silly showdown culminating in a glitzy, gaudy, happy ever after.

*retches

Excuse me.

On the plus side, there really is a lot of star-spotting in this movie. Biggest stars, of course, being Michelle Pfeiffer and Robert de Niro, both demanding lots of screen time just to have a good time. They really had fun with their roles and it showed.

Luscious Mz. Pfeiffer seeks for something a little stronger than botox.

Sinister Robbie wants very much to be Hitler. Or was it Evita?

Somehow, the Brit stars got relegated to bit parts in the show. I didn't even recognise Rupert Everett as Secundus. Of course, he did spend most of the show being semi-transparent and with half his face flattened. And Ricky Gervais of The Office got paid for doing nothing much.

At least we did get a rather yummy hero. Not exactly a hunk, but he's got the kind of dorky adorableness that grows on you.

Charlie Cox trysting with his role as Tristan

Much hotter eye-candy appear in the movie too. Unfortunately, they've got severely limited screen time.

Here's the hawt Henry Cavill (Humphrey) and debonair Ben Barnes (Young Dunstan Thorn)

There you have it. A nice little movie for when you have nothing better to watch. And these days, in the local cinemas, there really isn't much that's better to watch despite everything I had just said. You may actually like the movie for all it's Hollywoodiac formula, especially if you haven't read the book. Heck, I know a couple of guys who loved the movie even though they had read the book before hand! To each his own, I suppose.

For me though, the magic of this Stardust has turned out to be nothing more than a handful of cheap glitter.