My Two Top Romantic Fantasy Films: Does This Make me Soft?

OK, weird subject but what the heck. Weird in the sense that Fantasy ought to be heroes bashing goblins or at least slaying the odd dragon. Not that the dragon has to be loopy-odd, just rare-odd. Bringing romance into fantasy has its place of course and a hero rescuing a damsel in distress, such as in Shrek, has plenty of room for development.

My two top favourites are Beautiful Creatures http://www.warnerbros.com/beautiful-creatures and Stardust http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0486655/. Groundhog Day sneaks in for comedy element as a distinct runner up.

I only saw Beautiful Creatures recently and whereas it's not alone and other films have followed this line, such as Twilight, I found Beautiful Creatures to be less pretentious and quite refreshing. The CGI magic sequences were very well done. The plot rocked along at a gentle pace and hooked me from the start. The characterisation was good and Jeremy Irons played a great role. I thought Alice Englert was suitably gorgeous to entrap a young man's heart.

My favourite film still remains Stardust. It's the rare occasion when a film is better than the book. The humour is well done and I'll always remember bubbling candles. The scene in the first fantasy market was great and showed tremendous imagination in the film makers' minds. Like Harry Potter's Diagonal Alley, I could wander around there for hours.

Great films and we want more.

Alice Englert as Lena Duchannes