Stardust might be the closest we’ve got to a new Princess Bride
Watch This offers movie recommendations inspired by new releases, premieres, current events, or occasionally just our own inscrutable whims. This week: We’re dusting off a Watch This tradition and looking back on unsung summer blockbusters—the big movies that opened to critical scorn or audience indifference during the warmer weeks, but are better than their reputations (or tepid box office) suggest.
Stardust (2007)
Look, there’s never going to be another The Princess Bride. That film’s lightning-in-a-bottle combination of whimsy, postmodern comedy, and buckets of charm generated by its immensely likable cast can only be imitated, never replicated. But with its kid-friendly “long ago and far away” world-building and sophisticated storytelling, Matthew Vaughn’s Stardust comes closer than most films this century to matching the appeal of Rob Reiner’s classic. It’s based, like Princess Bride, on a book—Neil Gaiman’s 1998 novel of the same name, itself an expansion of his earlier comic-book miniseries. And like the Reiner film, it benefits from narration, Ian McKellen’s grandfatherly oration subbing in for the ramshackle draw of Peter Falk’s ambling voice-over storytelling. But most of all, the two movies share a commitment to old-fashioned notions of love and empathy while never once feeling trite or hoary.