Familiar fantasy

OK, here we have a fantasy film and I absolutely hate fantasy films. They bore me to hell and back, plus what if one day I don’t actually make it back? What if I end up stuck for all eternity in some place where, for example, everyone insists on speaking Elvish and having three-day message-board conversations about the story arc of Blake’s 7 or the nuances of Quidditch before going back to work on the helpdesk at the library?

I accept this is probably my limitation; that my imagination is a dried, shrivelled-up husk of a thing, which does makes it simpatico with my face but does not make it simpatico with this particular genre. But there you have it and there I have always had it. As a kid, I loved The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe until they went into the wardrobe, and then I lost interest entirely. If it is completely beyond the bounds of human possibility, why should I care? I’ve got better things to do, as you know.

So, why Stardust this week, then, when it’s just the kind of film I loathe? Good question. Well done, you! For that, I might not box your ears, although I’m not promising. I might just feel like it anyway. The answer? I was intrigued, I guess. It’s directed by Matthew Vaughn, who produced Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and then directed Layer Cake. He also wrote the screenplay along with Jane Goldman, a successful author in her own right, as well as wife of Jonathan Ross, also in her own right. And it stars, among others, Robert De Niro, Michelle Pfeiffer, Peter O’Toole (don’t get too excited; he has three lines then pops his clogs), Sienna Miller and Ricky Gervais.