The inset story about the girl who uses her truth-seeing to save the rightful king of the armored bears is a good one. It tells well, is very exciting, and is gorgeous to watch.
The rest of the movie feels (to me, and I have not read the books) unmotivated, stale, and boring. It's not quite incomprehensible, but it's certainly a long walk from being satisfying. The ending was so terribly unfinished that I came out of the theater feeling like I'd been ripped off.
I don't really care what the books say or do -- this is a movie that could have stood on its own had the filmmakers bothered to make it do that. Sure, it would have upset fans of the book (I remember being miffed when Jackson left out Tom Bombadil) but it's entirely possible to tell a damn good epic fantasy in 110 minutes without leaving off an actual ending.
Oh, is Stardust very different from the book? Now I'm waffling. I read the book after I heard about the movie, and found it very satisfying. I also thought it told a very filmable story. No harm in renting it anyway, I guess.
It is very different in places, especially the ending, but it's still quite good. It's just a different sort of good; a slightly happier ending, some simplification in exchange for a bit more comedy and action, and so forth. I'd still recommend it, though if you're getting it on DVD anyway, you might wait a little longer so that your memory of the book isn't going to be so fresh as to constantly make you compare the two. (I saw the movie four or five years after reading the book, so I had conveniently forgotten many details and thus got to be surprised all over again by even some of the parts that are identical between the two. And certainly by the changed parts.)
Yeah, this is one instance where sticking too closely to the book was, perhaps, Not A Good Thing. Because the book does end in pretty much the same inconclusive way. (Of course, one could say the same about Fellowship of the Ring, but in both the movie and the book there was more buildup that interested us in the characters, by then.)
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The rest of the movie feels (to me, and I have not read the books) unmotivated, stale, and boring. It's not quite incomprehensible, but it's certainly a long walk from being satisfying. The ending was so terribly unfinished that I came out of the theater feeling like I'd been ripped off.
I don't really care what the books say or do -- this is a movie that could have stood on its own had the filmmakers bothered to make it do that. Sure, it would have upset fans of the book (I remember being miffed when Jackson left out Tom Bombadil) but it's entirely possible to tell a damn good epic fantasy in 110 minutes without leaving off an actual ending.
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