Stardust

IT seems virtually every movie trailer these days features the same tag line designed to cash in on the void left by the books of the boy wizard: ‘it's up one boy to save the world.'

So it was only a matter of time before someone with half a brain – something the Pirates of the Caribbean writers missed – thought about sending a man to do that pretty difficult job.

And thankfully Matthew Vaughn's delightfully colourful and surreal new film pretty much follows that formula to the letter.

Cos at least Stardust's lead Tristan Thorn (Charlie Cox) can buy beer, smoke cigarettes and not look at the opposite sex as if they just caught a particularly bad case of leprosy.

Based on a graphic novel by Neil Gaiman, the film is remarkably similar to cult director Terry Gilliam's Time Bandits, although altogether lighter, sillier, and more cheerfully pointless.

The story – in as much as any film involving flying pirates, edible hearts and Ricky Gervais can be considered to have a plot – revolves around the young Thorn promising his beloved (an icy Sienna Miller) a fallen star by heading off to a magical land bordering his back yard.

But instead of a chunk of warm meteorite, what he finds is a beautiful woman named Yvaine (Claire Danes) who is being chased by three witches to gain eternal life.

Yet despite the thoughtful nonsense of the screenplay, what follows is a beautiful tale that simply cannot fail to captivate with its innocent charm and humour.

A far cry from those terrible mockney films Vaughn produced with Mrs Madonna in the nineties.

It's well-stocked cupboard of truly fantastic – and surprising – performances, particularly from Michelle Pfeiffer in a self-deprecating role as the witch completely obsessed with her beauty.

Similarly Cox strikes the perfect blend as the lead between smouldering hero and bumbling fool.

And then there's Robert De Niro.

While hardly on Goodfellas form, he manages to steal the show as a pirate, both playing homage to and destroying his hard man image with the gentle flutter of a pink-feathered fan.

The sometimes over-the-top CGI and Claire Danes aside – her voice an octave too low to be classed a sexy siren of the sky – Stardust will be propping up DVD shelves for sometime to come.

And yep, it does it without an annoying child actor in sight.