In Vaughan’s hands, Stardust becomes the stuff of legend.

A fallen star, a lovesick boy, sky pirates, witches, and a wall that shouldn’t be crossed – Stardust hurls all its elements into the cauldron and conjures something genuinely rare: a fantasy adventure that remembers stories are meant to be fun. With Matthew Vaughn at the helm, this 2007 gem swashbuckles through danger and desire with such infectious energy it’s a wonder it hasn’t been declared a national treasure.

There’s a bravado to the film’s tone – a playful defiance of the ponderous self-seriousness that plagued much of early-2000s fantasy. Where other films trudge through the mud of destiny and prophecy, Stardust sprints across enchanted moors, its boots barely touching the ground. It owes much of this lift to Vaughn’s direction, which blends classical fantasy iconography with an irreverent modern snap. He keeps the camera light on its feet, sweeping through spell-slinging duels and airborne clashes with a giddy sense of spectacle, while never losing sight of the human hearts beating beneath the magic.

Unlike the source material, which often keeps its characters and emotions at a wry, ironic distance, Stardust the film leans into the romance, the peril, and the whimsy with open-hearted sincerity. Where the novel enjoys toying with fairytale tropes from a detached vantage point, Vaughn’s adaptation dives straight into the heart of them, shaping something that plays as a fairytale in earnest, rather than a commentary on one. Nowhere is this more evident than in the creation of Captain Shakespeare. The book’s sky pirates barely register – nameless, functional, and forgettable. The film turns them into scene-stealers, led by Robert De Niro’s flamboyant and unexpectedly tender Shakespeare, who doesn’t just help Tristan on his way but embodies the film’s message about identity, reinvention, and self-acceptance. Touches like these aren’t just embellishments – they’re elevations, a testament to Vaughan’s and co-writer Jane Goldman’s skill in taking the source material and bringing it to the screen in its most cinematic, swashbuckling and satisfying form.

Charlie Cox anchors the film with the kind of performance that quietly builds into something irresistible. His Tristan starts off as a bit of a wet blanket – the kind of romantic lead who needs a good cosmic slap – but the script lets him learn and earn his heroism step by step along his almost literal hero’s journey. By the time he’s dashing through the skies in a snatched coat and a pirate’s swagger, he’s not just pretending – he’s transformed. Opposite him, Claire Danes glows in more ways than one as Yvaine. Her star is no damsel, and Danes gives her the perfect balance of exasperated sarcasm and emotional vulnerability, never letting the literal shine of the role overpower its sincerity.

But it’s the supporting cast that turns Stardust from a solid fantasy flick into a full-blown delight. Michelle Pfeiffer is a joyously wicked witch, relishing every glamoured smirk and spiteful curse. Her descent from sultry seductress to crumbling hag plays like a darkly comic reversal of the typical fairytale transformation. Robert De Niro flips expectations with the subtlety of a skyship broadside and has rarely looked like he’s having this much fun. Even aside from those two scene-stealing turns, the film boasts an almost obscene wealth of talent in its supporting cast from Peter O’Toole as the dying King of Stormhold, to his nefarious sons, played with magnificent malevolence by the likes of Mark Strong, Rupert Everett, Jason Flemyng, Mark Heap, Julian Rhind-Tutt and Adam Buxton to Pfeiffer’s fellow witches Empusa (Sarah Alexander), Mormo (Joanna Scanlan) and Melanie Hill’s gloriously grubby Ditchwater Sal. Only Ricky Gervais’ brief cameo as Ferdy The Fence strikes a bum note, briefly breaking the otherwise immersive experience of life beyond The Wall.

The worldbuilding is brisk but evocative – a collage of storybook fantasy tropes glued together with attitude and affection. The market in Wall, the royal family’s Macbethian scramble for the throne, the ghosts who hang around to provide sardonic commentary – it all feels cohesive, even as it careens from one absurd delight to another. Vaughn keeps the pace tight and the stakes personal, sidestepping the bloat that so often plagues fantasy epics. Crucially, Stardust is brave enough not to chase the shadow of Jackson’s Lord of the Rings. Where so many contemporaries clumsily tried to mimic Middle-earth’s mournful grandeur, Vaughn charts his own star-swept course – brighter, cheekier, and completely uninterested in competing on the same axis. It’s not lesser for being lighter; it’s liberating.

It also understands romance, which is more than can be said for most of its peers. The central relationship is allowed to simmer, spark, and properly complicate. Tristan’s initial object of affection – Sienna Miller’s deliciously superficial Victoria – is the kind of red herring that makes the payoff all the sweeter. The love story between Tristan and Yvaine earns its wings, not through overwrought declarations, but shared peril, slow trust, and a third-act kiss that genuinely lands.

There’s something almost radical about how optimistic Stardust is. It’s not naïve, and it doesn’t shy away from darkness – hearts are literally cut out, people die creatively, and the villains aren’t shy about getting nasty – but the tone remains buoyant. It believes in transformation, in redemption, and above all in the power of stories to surprise. In a cinematic landscape where fantasy often means franchise fatigue and grey-filtered doom, Stardust is a reminder that adventure can be both romantic and ridiculous, earnest and exhilarating.

It may not have lit up the box office like some of its contemporaries, but Stardust has aged better than most of them. It’s a film that feels hand-forged – the work of a director and cast having the time of their lives, daring to make a fairy tale that’s neither ironic nor saccharine. And in doing so, they struck gold. Or stardust, if you like.