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tardust, a $70 million hard-edged fairy tale that's chock full of fantasy elements, adapts Neil Gaiman's novel of the same name. Making their debut as feature screenwriters, Jane Goldman and director Matthew Vaughn (Layer Cake) stay true to Gaiman's style: heroic, wryly funny, but bloodthirsty as great fairy tales can often be.

It tells a complicated fairy tale about a is a resourceful shop boy named Tristan (Charlie Cox) who promises the hottest lass in the kingdom (Sienna Miller) that he can bring back a star they've seen fall, and give it to her on her birthday, in a week. That leads him to the fallen star herself, Yvaine (Claire Danes), the wicked witch (Michelle Pfeiffer) and king (Peter O'Toole) who are all hunting her and the flamboyant pirate.

Meanwhile, Captain Shakespeare (Robert De Niro), who's swept up in the mess, agrees to help the endangered couple. With his assistance, plus a boxful of lightning he's gathered from stormy skies, they might get through this.

Young Tristan finds an immortal source of illumination in Yvaine, as they initially bicker and get on each others' nerves, only to eventually fall madly in love. There's a lot of subplot and sideshow, involving multiple human-to-animal transformations, a white unicorn and a flying pirate ship, and the best of the movie is found in these.