The most original ride of the summer! This one reminded me of classic 80’s fantasies like The Neverending Story, the kind of unpredictable adventure tale isn’t made much anymore. I never knew exactly where this movie was going, and that made it really unique in this final stretch of a fairly strong summer movie season.

Tristan (Charlie Cox) is in love with Victoria (Sienna Miller) and makes a promise to her to journey to the end of the Earth to retrieve a fallen star that fell from the sky that took Victoria’s breath away. On his unusual odyssey, Tristan finds the star, which has turned into Yvaine (Claire Danes). He’s not the only one on the search, however, as a group of young sons to the recently deceased King must search out the star to take the throne, and an evil witch (Michelle Pfeiffer) must search out the star for eternal youth.

This film’s a hard one to describe because it doesn’t follow a completely typical structure. There are upward of four storylines battling it out at once, with all coming together in the end to create a really intense and enjoyable finale. My favorite part of the journey occurs when a pirate named Captain Shakespeare (Robert De Niro) picks up the two leads up in the clouds and makes them board his ship. He is as intimidating as Travis Bickle at first, but then, his true nature comes forth, displaying a different kind of De Niro performance.

All the actors - the veterans and the newbies - are welcome faces. I said it before about Hairspray and I’ll say it again… Michelle Pfeiffer, it’s great to have you back. She plays a villain very well, and she just relishes this role. Claire Danes and Charlie Cox have a great chemistry together, and they have some special moments together. I especially liked Sienna Miller’s performance, that could be overlooked by some, but is really worth noting. She plays the character with just the right amount of indifference to make us dislike her, but enough amount of joy to make us understand why Tristan fancies her. And… Ben Barnes… all I can say is… I can’t wait for Prince Caspian!!

As this final stretch of summer comes to a close, I can honestly say I’ve been pretty happy with most of the movies this summer. And here’s another great one. It seems to be falling between the cracks, as the trailers didn’t do a whole lot for me or most anyone I know. The word of mouth got me out to this one, and I was pleasantly surprised. There’s a lot of original stuff in this movie, and it’s worth seeing in a theatre. It’s no Harry Potter, mind you, but it’s great entertainment.

3 stars (out of 4)