The Princess Bride Meets Labyrinth In Charlie Cox's 19-Year-Old Fantasy Gem

Charlie Cox starred in an overlooked but great fantasy film that combines the storybook qualities of The Princess Bride with the cult-classic status of Labyrinth. Today, Charlie Cox is best known for playing Matt Murdock, aka Daredevil, in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Years before he was prowling Hell's Kitchen as a blind vigilante, however, one of Charlie Cox's best movies was a fantasy film that flew way under the radar back in 2007.

Charlie Cox's fantasy film Stardust had a lot going for it, but it never became a huge success. It was an adaptation of one of Neil Gaiman's novels, it had a star-studded cast that included Claire Danes, Robert De Niro, Mark Strong, and Michelle Pfeiffer, and it got fairly good reviews that now total up to a Certified Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Even with all its advantages, Stardust earned less than $140 million at the box office and was considered a commercial failure.

Now, Stardust has been relegated to lists of fantasy movies that no one remembers today, 19 years later. The most disappointing part of Stardust's failure to attract a large audience, however, was its similarities to The Princess Bride and Labyrinth, two of the best fantasy movies ever made. Stardust should have been a smash-hit for combining elements of those classic films, and while it didn't find commercial success, it is a fantastic movie that's well worth watching.

Stardust Has The Same Storybook Feel As The Princess Bride

One of the many great things about The Princess Bride is the way it feels like it was lifted straight from the pages of a storybook and transposed onto a screen, and Stardust replicates that feeling almost perfectly. Most of that comes from the world of Stardust, with its living stars, murderous princes, salty lightning pirates, and more, that feels just as rich and fun as the world of The Princess Bride does. On top of that, Stardust also boasts great narration from Sir Ian McKellen, which gives it the same feeling as Peter Falk reading a book to his grandson.

Stardust offers pretty much everything The Princess Bride does, just with a few updates. The romance between Tristan (Cox) and Yvaine (Danes) is nearly as good as the chemistry between Buttercup and Humphrey. The main duo of both movies are also bolstered by an incredibly star-studded cast of very colorful characters. The sword fighting and action of pirates and princes alike feels just like watching Inigo Montoya whip his rapier around. Stardust even has a similar sense of humor to The Princess Bride, one where nothing is what meets the eye.

In everything but name, Stardust is a spiritual successor to The Princess Bride. While it leans further into the high fantasy elements through witches and sentient stars, it's just as fun and whimsical as Rob Reiner's classic. Both Stardust and The Princess Bride will make you laugh, gasp, possibly cry, and feel every moment of romance. Most of all, both movies transport the viewer to a wonderful new storybook world, if only for a few hours.

Stardust Also Mirrors The Offbeat & Unique Aspects Of Labyrinth

While Stardust does share a lot of classic high fantasy elements with The Princess Bride, it also shares just as much DNA with the much more offbeat fantasy film Labyrinth. Stardust and Labyrinth have a lot of similarities that can be seen immediately. Both follow protagonists from the normal world going on an adventure in a strange fantasy world. Neither did well at the box office, though both would go on to become cult classics among viewers. Most importantly, both were just a bit strange among the fantasy genre as a whole.

The strangeness that Stardust shares with Labyrinth is easiest to see in their villains. Michelle Pfeiffer plays a witch seeking to kill Yvaine and eat her heart to gain eternal youth in the former, while David Bowie plays a goblin king seeking to turn Sarah's baby brother into a goblin in the latter. Both Pfeiffer and Bowie are superstars in the real world playing very eccentric and devilish magic-wielders who torment the young protagonists of their fantasy movies. They also both approach the role in very similar ways, and both Pfeiffer and Bowie play their outlandishly evil antagonists completely straight, even when they teeter on the edge of being camp.

Overall, what really connects Stardust to Labyrinth is that there really isn't anything else exactly like it in the fantasy genre. Stardust does have a lot in common with The Princess Bride, but it also feels very distinct from that movie in its villain, its magic, and its world at large. Labyrinth is the same; there's no other fantasy movie that offers the same blend of Jim Henson's excellent puppetry and David Bowie's audacious villain. Stardust comes the closest, which makes it very much so worth watching.