The Golden Compass Review
by [email protected] (dnb AT dca DOT net)December 4th, 2007
THE GOLDEN COMPASS
A film review by David N. Butterworth
Copyright 2007 David N. Butterworth
** (out of ****)
With the staggering success of the "'Lord of the Rings" films filmmakers have been falling over themselves to shuttle the next grand fantasy into theaters--"Harry Potter" and "The Chronicles of Narnia," "Stardust" and "The Bridge to Terabithia," "Eragon" and "Inkheart." But wait there's more!
The latest would-be franchise to feature talking animals, airborne witches, scurvy pirates, and Nicole Kidman is "The Golden Compass," book one of Philip Pullman's popular "His Dark Materials" series. It's dressed to the nines with colorful characters possessing names like Lyra Belacqua, Iorek Brynison, Serrafina Pekkala, and Ragnar Sturlusson, elaborate flying contraptions, crushing battle scenes, orphans, dust, and tundra, and you watch it for a couple of hours, shrug your shoulders, and exit saying "Yeah, whatever. It was OK I suppose." Not the most ringing of endorsements for an epic adventure that clearly cost a *lot* of money to produce and has a lot of expectations riding on it.
Perhaps too much is simply too much.
Newcomer Dakota Blue Richards beat out some 600 Lyra wannabes for the lead; Craig, Daniel Craig ("Casino Royale") is her bearded intrepid adventurer uncle Lord Asriel; and two Mc'Ians ('Kellen and 'Shane) play polar bears (well; lend their voices to them at least). Annoying Freddie Highmore also provides some vocal work as an annoying daemon named Pan (daemons are animal representations of people's souls in Pullman's alternative universe), Eva Green ("Casino Royale" also) is a witch, Sam Elliot plays (surprise surprise) an aging cowboy type, and Kristin Scott Thomas... Well, I couldn't quite place her but she's supposed to be in it somewhere.
A smattering of chiefly British talent flesh out the roles of malevolent Magesterium members and gypsy-like Gyptians--Christopher Lee, Tom Courtenay, Derek Jacobi. There are also Gobblers, Samoyeds, Tartars, and armored ice bears for good measure. The vision is certainly all there, computer graphic imaged within an inch of its life (almost every character has a bird, mammal, rodent, or insect perched atop their shoulder) and director Chris Weitz ("About a Boy") manages to rassle everything together with competence if not exactly flair (apparently the special effects demands of the picture got a little much for him at one point and he took a temporary leave of absence).
But I didn't detect a sense of magic here. Perhaps--as I have learned to my significant satisfaction from the Harry Potter films--it really does help to have read the book(s) first. (Although, having said that, rabid fans of the books are often the harshest critics of a novel's cinematic retelling, so perhaps not.) Personally I wasn't all that impressed with the titular Alethiometer; just a bunch of spinning hands and cogs and a descent into orange powdered hallucinations.
If nothing else "The Golden Compass" is an excellent opportunity to cuddle up with your younger kids, comforting them during the nasty ice bear duel, or when the bad guys try to cut Lyra's daemon from her, or when Lyra enters a spooky shack looking for her Jordan College roommate. In that regard my thanks go out to Weitz for finishing what he started.
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David N. Butterworth
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