The Golden Compass Review
by Steve Rhodes (steve DOT rhodes AT internetreviews DOT com)December 5th, 2007
THE GOLDEN COMPASS
A film review by Steve Rhodes
Copyright 2007 Steve Rhodes
RATING (0 TO ****): **
In a film targeted, one supposes, at older grade school kids, THE GOLDEN COMPASS features lifeless performances by all of the adults. The lead girl, Dakota Blue Richards, who plays Lyra Belacqu with good charisma, is the only live-action person in the cast who comes close to delivering a compelling performance. The daemons, however, cute CGI animals who accompany their human alter egos, are uniformly appealing. But, with a script that feels rushed and that is very short on character development, the movie gives potential ticket buyers little reason to choose this movie over the many others in this Christmas season's packed offerings.
Based on Philip Pullman' novels, the movie is a confusing mess of many characters, allegiances, and diabolical plot lines. Watching THE GOLDEN COMPASS, certain to be one in a series of films, most audience members will be baffled by its story, feeling like they accidently started at fourth or fifth episode in a ten-part production.
I kept thinking that THE LORD OF RINGS could have been this bad if it were not for the genius of Peter Jackson's directing. THE GOLDEN COMPASS's writer and director Chris Weitz, the writer of the abysmal NUTTY PROFESSOR II: THE KLUMPS, seems completely lost on how to properly stage a mythical movie like THE GOLDEN COMPASS. The visuals are okay, even if too much of the color palate is drab and dreary, but the live-action performances aren't very animated.
As Marisa Coulter, Nicole Kidman gives the blandest acting of the bunch in what sometimes seems like a cast of thousands. But Daniel Craig, the new 007, sleepwalks though his reading of Lord Asriel. The kids, while outshining the adult actors, speak in such thick and mumbled Cockney accents that it is frequently hard to understand anything they are saying.
The movie isn't even able to make the eponymous Golden Compass interesting. Something like a crystal ball, it provides murky images which only Lyra, its new owner, manages to make much sense of.
The story, which plays like a cross between STAR WARS, THE LORD OF THE RINGS and 1984, concerns hideous experiments that some adults are conducting on kidnapped children. The movie is correctly rated PG-13 rather than the PG you might expect. Little kids in our audience were screaming out in horror at some of the frightening images on the screen. And, even for kids with a high tolerance for the scary parts, the movie offers them little other than some fight scenes between CGI animals such as the "ice bears," think bigger than normal polar bears.
Adults will likely be bored stiff. Only fans of the book would appear to be a built-in audience for this movie. Others should simply go to the box office and choose something else. There are plenty of other films to pick from this Christmas season, especially the absolutely delightful and completely hilarious ENCHANTED.
The movie doesn't have an ending per se. It just stops abruptly and reminds you, not very subtly, that you'll need to buy more tickets in the future to find out how it finally ends.
THE GOLDEN COMPASS runs 1:53. It is rated PG-13 for "sequences of fantasy violence" and would be acceptable for kids around 10 and up.
The film opens nationwide in the United States on Friday, December 7, 2007. In the Silicon Valley, it will be showing at the AMC theaters, the Century theaters and the Camera Cinemas.
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