Starring: Nicole Kidman, Dakota Blue Richards, Daniel Craig Average Rating: Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1 Audience Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested) Binding: Blu-ray Format: Dolby, DTS Surround Sound, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen Label: New Line Home Video Number of Items: 2 Region Code: 1 Release Date: April 29, 2008 Running Time: 113 minutes Theatrical Release Date: December 07, 2007
Product Description: In a parallel universe where witches rule the skies and armoured bears are the bravest warriors young Lyra Belacqua journeys from her home among the scholars at Oxford to the far North to save her best friend. Based on the first book in the Carnegie Medal-winning series His Dark Materials.Format: BLU-RAY DISC Genre: SCI-FI/FANTASY/FANTASY UPC: 794043120442 Manufacturer No: 1000038168
Amazon.com: A fantasy epic with more than a passing resemblance to the Lord of the Rings and Chronicles of Narnia film franchises, The Golden Compass takes place in an alternate universe where each human's soul is embodied in a companion animal called a daemon. Lyra (Dakota Blue Richards), an orphan who's lived most of her life among the scholars at Oxford, is intrigued when her uncle, Lord Asriel (Daniel Craig), announces his plans to travel north to investigate the source of some mysterious particles called Dust. Lyra has little hope of following her uncle until a mysterious woman named Mrs. Coulter (Nicole Kidman, at her most icily beautiful) asks Lyra to travel north as her personal assistant. All is not as it seems, however, and the disappearance of Lyra's friend Roger (Ben Walker) sets her on a dizzying adventure. She does have an alethiometer, or golden compass, that can help her see the truth, and a number of companions, including her shape-shifting daemon, Pantalaimion (voiced by Freddie Highmore of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory), polar-bear warrior Iorek Byrnison (voiced by Ian McKellen), Texas aeronaut Lee Scoresby (Sam Elliott), and witch queen Serafina Pekkala (Craig's Casino Royale co-star, Eva Green). Even before its release, The Golden Compass was the subject of controversy over its perceived anti-religious themes. While it does involve an oppressive institution called the Magisterium, it's not overtly religious, particularly to a young viewer. The movie's PG-13 rating should be taken seriously, however. Suitable for an older audience than Narnia (though younger than The Lord of the Rings), it deals with complex concepts, violence (though largely bloodless) and implied death, children and animals in peril, and an unrelentingly ominous and unsettling mood.
Despite a few changes and rearrangements, the overall plot of the movie is remarkably faithful to its source material, the first installment of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy. It doesn't finish the book, however, and--much like The Fellowship of the Ring did--leaves the viewer hanging in anticipation of the next film, The Subtle Knife, due in 2009. So even though The Golden Compass is impressive--especially with its spot-on cast and terrific visual effects--we probably won't know its full emotional impact until the story is complete. --David Horiuchi
The Golden Compass review I hadn't read the novel before the movie, so I enjoyed the condensed version on screen, but my teenaged son lamented that so many parts had been left out from the book. It's nearly impossible to capture the full spirit and flavor of a book, or include all the chapters and details in the movie version, but this tale has plenty of great fantasy fiction and I found it very entertaining. A young girl with a good heart has her determination fully tested when she attempts to rescue her kidnapped friends. It was left just a little 'opened-ended' to make room for a sequel, but not in a way that leaves the viewer frustrated.
Chrissy K. McVay - Author
Amazing Pros: Excellent story, amazing animation, fast moving, realistic story given that it seems to be based on a re-mix of our own history. This is a replacement for Harry Potter since that story (movie sequence) seems to be wrapping up.
Cons: This story is going to span about 3 movies which is a good thing if you don't mind waiting for the remaining films.
In The Not-Too-Distant Future... Once upon a time, there was a show called Mystery Science Theater 3000. The premise of this show was to take bad movies from bygone days and riff snarky comedy off of them.
Watching MST3k (as it was known by its fans, the MSTies), I was always led to wonder about the original films. For most of them, presumably, there was a day when the movie was taken kind of seriously. I mean, maybe not Manos, but some of those others -- they had writers, directors, and actors who wanted to produce a decent, money-making product (not to mention the investors/producers!). I also bet that a number of the movies spoofed by Joel, Mike & the bots had fans at one point. That they were not complete flops at the theater, or in the minds of the theater-goers.
In many respects, cinema has changed from then to now. Budgets are up all-around, and standards have changed so that we're not likely to see the zippers on monsters anymore. But, as the expression goes, the more things change, the more they stay the same. Bad writing is still bad writing. Zippers on costumes have been replaced with bad CG effects. And high-budget schlock is arguably worse than the low-budget variety. I expect that 30 years from now, we'll again be able to support an MST3k-type venture. If so, certainly there are movies from our age that they could slam with justice.
I submit to you that The Golden Compass is one of those movies.
Reading Philip Pullman's novel was a decent experience. I enjoyed it. After having read the following two novels in his trilogy, I eventually decided that (sadly) Pullman doesn't really know what he was doing, and that The Golden Compass was more the exception than the rule.
Watching this film, where all of the main plot events are presented at a break-neck, frenetic pace, it made me feel foolish for ever having liked the first novel to begin with. The characters are cardboard (what acting talent went to waste, here!), the plot events are unbelievable (even given the grand latitude I cut children's fantasy), and whatever thematic material there is, is convoluted and obscure.
This isn't a good movie. It stuffs a mess of exposition into an opening voice over then runs from event to event without time to enjoy anything. I remember in reading the novel that there was some time at the beginning to get to know Lyra before she set out with Mrs. Coulter; here, it happens in the space of about 15 minutes. Seeing the characters come to life points out their basic absurdity, like Lee Scorsby who I could take somewhat seriously in the novel, but not at all here -- he becomes a Texan caricature. Even with its CG world and creatures, this movie never achieves the sense of wonder of, say, a Neverending Story; it has no time for a sense of wonder, and Iorek and Serafina Pekkala are cold substitutes for the likes of Falkor.
At the least, the movie tries to address some of the shortcomings of Pullman's book, in reorganizing the final events to end on the main plot's climax, and small things like making Lyra's the only extant alethiometer. But those (good) changes can't overcome the central weaknesses of the story which are only heightened by seeing it try to come to life on the screen.
His Dark Materials is often compared (grossly unfairly) with The Lord of the Rings. They are similar, however, in that I'd imagine it would be hard to make either into good films, given the amount of action and detail in them. The Lord of the Rings was given the running time and the care to pull it off in glorious fashion. The Golden Compass, however much money was put into it, was a failure. It disappoints its source material which, in the final analysis, was never all that great. The only good thing to really come out of this film is that, it did so poorly both financially and critically, that the sequels will almost certainly not get made.
Another good can be made from this film: fodder for a future version of Mystery Science Theater 3000. What do you think, sirs?
One of the best and most beautiful fantasy films in a long time! I absolutely loved this film! Between the narrow-minded religious righters, and the hardcore book fans, this movie was bound to get a lot of negative reviews. But it is smart, well acted, well written, and stunning to watch. Most of all, it is a wonderful and brilliantly thought out mythology. One of the most creative and thorough I have seen.
I find it funny that half the negative reviews say it moved too fast, and the other half say it was too boring. I thought it was just wonderful, and can hardly wait for the next movie!! PS. To the people who say this bombed, it has done EXTREMELY WELL in Europe!
Lots of "telling" and no clear character motivation This movie is fun to watch for the CGI world, and the acting is generally fine, but those are the only good parts. The overall storytelling is terrible, and the characters' motivations are never explained.
It starts in the narration at the beginning when we're told that the Magisterium wants to preserve their truth so they've destroyed all the alethiometers (which reveal hidden truths) and banned the mention of dust. What does the Magisterium fear from dust?? We're never told. And what "truths" is the Magisterium trying to protect? We're never told. The movie basically says, "They're the bad guys" but gives no other explanation.
What is the motivation of Nicole Kidman's character to do what she does? We're never told. How do the Gyptians (or whatever they're called) know that the missing kids have been taken to the north? We're never told. Why does the movie billing say that it stars Daniel Craig when he only appears in the first five minutes? We're never told!
However, we are "told" lots of the story. Instead of *showing* the story to us, several of the characters have long lines explaining all sorts of things for the benefit of the audience. Boring and contrived. And two characters tell Lyra bits of information that she uses later in the story, but the characters have no reason to tell her those things at the time that they tell her. Very awfully contrived.
One of the worst aspects of this movie is that it is an incomplete first installment that makes no attempt to wrap up any story lines so that the audience feels any sense of closure. The Harry Potter stories are all complete in themselves. The Narnia stories are all complete in themselves. This movie is just an ad for sequels. By the very end of the movie they have managed to assemble most (not all) of "the team" that is obviously intended to go on together. But even that is incomplete, with Lyra saying "Now let's go pick up my dad and add him to the team" but then the movie ends. They don't rescue dad. They don't explain the dust. They don't explain anyone's motivations. And they don't give the audience a satisfying movie experience.
I haven't read the book, but I'll be generous and assume that the author did a much better job with all this, and they just couldn't find a way to fit all the bits into the movie. Look elsewhere for a well-done fantasy movie. I hope they don't waste money and time on a sequel.
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