Fans of The Princess Bride, the Brothers Grimm, and love in general will swoon for this Neil Gaiman masterpiece.

What? It's true, especially in terms of the flamboyantly descriptive and colorful tale of pirates, love, witches, fantasy, coming of age, and treachery that would be the equivalent of Disney getting their hands on the work of Shakespeare. In between directing Layer Cake and Kick Ass, and producing Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels and Harry Brown, Matthew Vaughn directed this gleaming jewel of a movie about finding true love and vanquishing evil, and finding your inner "jewel."

Tristan (Charlie Cox), a love-deluded fool of a young man, seeks to acquire a fallen star to impress the woman he thinks he loves, but the star is actually Yvaine (Claire Danes, in the last role any of us have seen her in for awhile). He comes from the "real" world; she comes from the fairy tale world on the other side of the wall. The star-crossed lovers aside, there's plenty of Shakespeare-meets-Freud with the set of sons of the fairytale king chasing the jewel to gain the crown and the trio of witches on its trail trying to gain eternal life. Given that the main witch, Lamia,is played by Michelle Pfeiffer, there's enough star power to go around, but one of the most intriguing characters is played by Robert De Niro.

De Niro's Captain Shakespeare constantly worries about his reputation aboard his lightning-chasing, airborne pirate ship. He's not the funniest character (Ricky Gervais' tradesman might qualify) but he provides some serious hijinks as a pirate captain worried about his manly, rough reputation while secretly enjoying good ballroom, classical music, and the opportunity to... dress up. While there's some gender confusion there, it's safe to say that Vaughn's direction tries to decide what each character's inner beauty is and whether or not they are able to embrace it. Some characters, the bad ones, usually fail in their attempts, while others, the good ones, end up finding it in the end.

Some of these characters are too "lost" to be of any use, though.

Mark Strong's Prince Septimus qualifies. In a star turn before he really captured main attention (Sherlock Holmes, Robin Hood, Kick-Ass), Strong plays the evil brother who survives the aftermath of the family infighting and ends up being one of the two main antagonists. While Pfeiffer and De Niro are the better known, you almost expect their abilities to shine through; Strong is the one no one knows (then) who makes a strong impact, but he's also aided by the Greek chorus of deceased brothers' ghosts who track along behind him.

The Blu-ray doesn't bring anything terribly new extra-wise, but the special effects for this one are definitely awesome to see in higher definition. I'm convinced that while some people might dream in black and white, Gaiman's whole life is in a spectrum half of us can't see. He certainly sees into the human heart, and blends that with the fantasy adventures he's created. What is true love? Why do we matter? What happens when we recognize who we are and what we're created to be? Does that change our perspective?

Sometimes, we only need a little sprinkling of stardust and it all becomes a little clearer.