My own self

The fastest way to travel is by candlelight.

Oooh.

While I haven't read Neil Gaiman's original illustrated novel, after this, I'm damned sure to. I liked this movie a lot; in fact, I'm tempted to say I loved it.

What's done here is basically that he's written a brand new fairy-tale which feels like a genuine fairy tale but lacks the hopeless two-dimensionality of most traditional stories from the genre. The world he has created looks almost like a fantasy-world, but it's not, it's a fairy-tale-world, which is something different. What makes it look almost like fantasy, though, is how thoroughly well its painted out for us, how deep and rich it is, and how well every aspect of the movie sells it.


Furthermore, this movie does something wonderful - while making a movie that's basically a fairy-tale, having a clear, sweet, almost endearingly naïve and cozy set of plots and characters where the good are really good, the bad are really awful and the slow all get wiser in the end, it doesn't remove every hint of material that could possibly make it offensive and inaccessible to children. This makes the movie so much more entertaining to the slightly more adult audience, and while it is of course if it alienates some younger viewers; I honestly doubt that it will. The somewhat adult references and scenes are done sparingly enough that it hopefully won't bother anyone; the point isn't that it's a lot of it, but that it's not cut away, it's there. They have had the nerve to tell the story like they want to and go for the jokes they'd like to, without regards to the age-rating. At least that how it felt like to me. And I quite loved it.

Visually, too, the movie's awesome, the special effects are hardly noticable, they're there to enrichen and enliven the world, not to awe us with big fancy scenes. I really, really liked it.

Really, expecting a mediocre fairy-tale movie for children, I got a very well done movie suitable for just about any age of viewer, in my book. I was really happy with the entire movie experience, and my only small complaints were a somewhat erraticly hurried beginning and an annoying time span of one week which makes a lot of plot-mechanisms like the clumsy main character being trained to excellence in swordplay ridiculously unlikely. I hear, though, that in the illustrated novel the same time span is several months, which would better this a lot. Looking forward to read it.

Just when I think that I've got Mr. Gaiman's genious figured out, I keep having to readjust. Apparently, he can do sweet, cozy and happy just as good as he can do sombre, deep and complex. Hats off, sir.

Oh, and a shout out to Robert de Niro as the awesome Captain Shakespeare, who more than any other one character made this movie for me. He rocked.

This was hardly an aweinspiringly interesting movie, but it was the best take I've ever seen on a simple fairy tale. And dear lords, how often it made me laugh! A very, very strong 8,5/10