Der goldene Kompass

I went in cynical about this, especially after the travesty that was the Narnia film, but i was quickly converted: it's great fun. A really entertaining and immersive film that intelligently builds a fantastical world that the uninitiated can marvel and thrill in. I have to say i haven't read the books so can't comment on a book to film comparison.

On the cast, I don't know how it works in the book but the adults are barely in this. Nicole has the most significant work and Sam Elliott, while a late arrival, is a great presence once he's around. However Daniel Craig and Eva Green are barely in it and Christopher Lee has one blink-and-you'll miss him scene. That said the casting is excellent. Green is suitably witchy and Craig makes an impact in his one/two dialogue scenes early on which, along with a couple of wordless inserts of his storyline, put him enough into your mind to wonder about him. He feels set up for a more significant role in future instalments. Elliott is great. That sonorous voice sneaking out from underneath that bushy moustache feels exactly right for Lee Scorsby.

Kidman is perfect. There's something indelibly creepy about her rigid manner that works for the elegant but sinister Mrs Coulter. Meanwhile Simon McBurney is magnificently slimy and loathsome as the magisterium main face. You know he's a villain from the moment he enters frame.

Dakota Blue Richards is a great find as Lara. While the first two Potter films and Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe were significantly hampered by the incredibly mannered, unrealistic, wooden acting of the young leads (most of the Potter cast got better, time will tell on Narnia) Richards is a winner from the outset. Precocious and feisty without seeming too forced she is generally believable whether is her rebellion or her loyalty. This is just as well as the film is really entirely on her shoulders. It will work or not for people based on whether you like her. She's in virtually every scene and has a lot of different emotions to get across as well as having to have significant interaction with CGI creations like her spirit animal Pan (the ubiquitous Freddie Highmore) and the polar bear played by Ian McKellen. She has a couple of slightly actorly moments but does incredibly well for a first timer under this kind of pressure.

Of the voice-only cast McKellen is a perfect choice for the honourable polar bear while Highmore is either getting less annoying or it's just beneficial not being able to see him, as he is nicely understated as Pan. My only note on this casting would be once or twice I couldn't tell is Lyra or Pan was speaking in their interaction as in quiet moments Highmore and Richards' voices are remarkably similar!

The effects are good but not great. I had worried they'd be as weak as Narnia and they aren't. The world is beautifully created and always feels real, whether Scorsby's flying ship or the blimp thing from the trailer, or stunning Arctic landscapes and big cities. The smaller creatures are also brilliantly rendered, Pan in particular. Some of the bigger creatures are less perfect. The polar bears have a cartoony unreal feel but in a fantasy setting with battle armour and stuff they work well enough. Certainly better than Aslan in Narnia. However the leopard creature with Daniel Craig doesn't look right at all.

As for the film itself it really zips along quickly. The uninitiated (like me) may occasionally lose track of what's going on early on as strange terms and names are thrown back and forth but it soon settles down and makes sense. Rather than frustrating me that I might be missing key elements of what this world was about I felt happy going with it and was left thinking I'll watch it again when it's released just to be sure I didn't miss anything. It's a relief to see a fantasy film that brings it in at almost exactly two hours and has a cracking momentum, as opposed to the seemingly endless drag of Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter and Narnia. Don't get me wrong taking time can work. I really liked Fellowship of the Ring but the pace of the Potters really tests my patience. Golden Compass moves so fast before you know it it's over and it leaves you wanting more. Indeed at the end of this film I could say it had succeeded in doing something the Potter franchise has never done: it left me desperate to see the next one.

However what really made me like this film more than those others is the tone and some of the things they do in it. There are moments in this, that i won't spoil for those like me who didn't know the plot, that really surprised me that they'd do in a family film.

A big fight scene between polar bears and the end battle are suitably exciting and i found myself really invested. I cared about the characters. Whereas in Narnia they hadn't done enough to make you care about Aslan's fate (criminal given how effectively the book and the 80s BBC TV serial managed it) this really has you on the edge of your seat for the good guys.

Overall I really liked Golden Compass and would give it an 8/10 – compared to LOTR 10/10, 9/10, 7/10 for the series, Potter 5/10, 6/10, 8/10, 7/10, 7/10 for the series and Narnia 4/10. I will be watching this again when it comes out (something I never did for Potter or Narnia) and am looking forward to the next instalment. I hope Daniel Craig and Eva Green get bigger roles in the next film, but all round a great start to a potential franchise that I had middling hopes for.

The film looked good but I felt that the film had been dumbed down to make it suitable for all. A lot of people leaving the cinema had the same opinion. If the film had been longer then it could've contained more of the book and included more of the theological aspects. I think the books were so good because they expected a depth of understanding from the reader and presented ideas about the soul, etc. in an intelligent way. The reader was expected to think, something the film doesn't! The film seemed really cheesy, rather like the Chronicles of Narnia. I was hoping for something with a bit more depth, like Lord of the Rings. The cast was good and the locations all looked as I'd imagined they would. Young children will probably enjoy this and it may encourage them to read the novels.

It says something when you almost enjoy but then have to consult Wikipedia halfway through in order to remind yourself what is going on . It was via Wikipedia that I found out a very interesting fact and that is that original novelist Philip Pullman wrote his book with a heavy anti religious tone and this almost started to make sense almost and I do emphasise almost . One can almost imagine the ruling elite of this parallel universe called the Magisterium is a metaphor for the Vatican . Did I mention almost ? Good because there's to be two things fighting against each other in this movie from a narrative point of view and I'm talking about the good guys versus the bad guys . What I mean is that despite rejecting the religious nonsense seen in the world every person reading this lives in this alternative universe is equally guilty of spiritual poppycock . All religions come under metaphysics and while not all nonsense is metaphysical just about all metaphysics is nonsense in itself . We all know someone like this is real life where someone is well educated , perhaps holding a degree in the fields of science only to let them themselves down by stating they believe in Karma or a belief that string theory suggests there's an afterlife . It's the same with THE GOLDEN COMPASS that might have rejected the existence of Abrahamic God but is happy to have other metaphysical stuff to drive the story

In other words it seems like a film that is in conflict with itself as to the subtext almost as though stuff has been added to as not to alienate the believer which seems to suggest a moral cowardice of sorts . If there's stuff been added then one also gets the instinct that a lot has been take out of the film at an editing level . Characters come and go in a haphazard manner such as Daniel Craig's Lord Asriel who disappears and you keep expecting him to make a reappearance which he doesn't really . Likewise the Magisteruim's high council who you feel are just there to give some well respected actors a brief cameo to prop up the box office . There's also a much need for exposition which is a short coming . I'm left pretty clueless as to what the significance of Dust is and other plot points . I can understand that this might have been explained more if the series had gone ahead in a planned trilogy but the poor box office showing meant that idea was scrapped which is something of a pity because for what it is a - a dark fairy tale - it works very well on a visual level with some very good performances . But that said the disjointed manner of the storytelling dooms the film to a large degree

An evil empire called the Magestirium attempts total control of the population by hiding the secrets or parallel universes and a unifying particle called Dust in Chris Weitz's clunky but entertaining adaptation of Philip Pullman's "The Golden Compass".

"Harry Potter" and "The Lord of the Rings" have never apologized about their overt paganism. Likewise, "The Chronicles of Narnia" have never been accused of being subtle as a Christian allegory. These series, in both literary and film forms, have been monster hits due to their unapologetic natures that speak truths to their ardent fan bases. British writer Philip Pullman's darkly subversive anti-religious fantasy books have also been hugely successful, more so overseas than here in the States. Stripped of the books' overt atheistic messages, "The Golden Compass" takes a reverse psychology approach in its film treatment and oddly positions itself as an apology for Pullman's work. The result is a tepid affair that joins a long line of fantasy films about children discovering they are the chosen ones destined to save the world. At least this film is refreshing in its stance on girl-power as represented in the main character Lyra, played wonderfully by newcomer Dakota Blue Richards, who apparently is a graduate of the Dakota Fanning school of acting. Whether or not this tactic to strip the film of its soul (much like the Magesiterium strips children of their daemons) will make the film broadly appealing enough to warrant a franchise has yet to be determined.

The film comes across as more anti-authoritarianism in general than specifically anti-religion. In the 21st century the line between authoritarian politics and organized religion has become increasingly blurred. Since we currently live in a world where a born-again Christian sits in the White House and wages wars in Muslim nations, it's easy to see why folks from both sides of the aisle, ardent fans of the books and conservative Christians alike, have been worked up into a mindless and silly frenzy over even just a watered-down film version of the first of Pullman's "His Dark Materials" trilogy, with one side saying it's not wickedly subversive enough, and the other side saying it's still subversively wicked.

However, viewing the film out of the context of the books upon which it is based and the ridiculous faux-controversy surrounding them, it makes the grade as a big-budget fantasy flick. Yes, there are too many characters to keep track of, and the film has rushed feel to it as if it was edited at the last minute, but it still makes for an interesting trip. Kids will be wowed by the elaborate set designs and CGI effects, which are far superior to the ones in the similarly clunky but still entertaining "Chronicles of Narnia" and culminate in an awesome battle sequence involving armored polar bears--take that Global Warming! Adults will get a kick out the nimble ensemble cast, who all seem to be having a great deal of fun with the self-seriousness of the whole production and are headlined by Nicole Kidman--botoxed, full-lipped and deliciously frosty in a creepy villain role that suits her perfectly.

Possibly the strangest aspect of the film comes as an accidental subtext resulting from its apologetic nature. With its depiction of mystical-minded do-gooders rallying against the totalitarian Magestirium, "The Golden Compass" almost comes across as a period piece anti-Communist allegory rallying for the fall of the Soviet Union. It makes the film feel charmingly dated. There's also the disturbing subtext of child abuse at the hands of the Catholic Church as seen in the Magestirium's cruel experiments with kidnapped children, which makes the film feel charmingly grotesque.

Bottom Line: Any movie that depicts Nicole Kidman walking around with a monkey and preaches the importance of free will, making bonds, sticking together, and fighting for your friends and loved ones can't be all that bad. Despite some of the themes of the books being exorcised and arbitrarily presented by a poorly chosen Chris Weitz (a director known for his comedies "American Pie" and "About a Boy"), "The Golden Compass" still has enough interesting elements and old-fashioned razzle dazzle presented with new age CGI to make it entertaining. At its worst, it presents two hours of dark fantasy-land eye candy. At its best, it encourages adults and children alike to use their free will to do something far better with their two hours, like read.

For some strange reason, a theater in the middle of the cornfield in Indiana had a sneak preview of the Golden Compass, and being a fan of the books I decided to take advantage of it. I wasn't sure what I was getting into, as there seems to be a rather large glut of Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings wannabes crowding theaters now and in the near future. This version of the Golden Compass beautifully brings the books to life and was very pleasing to watch with rather nice visuals. The acting is quite good, especially from the young lead, and the animation makes one wonder what they can't do with computers these days. The only true complaint I have about this movie is that it is difficult to understand and follow if one is not familiar with the books. Some scenes at the beginning seems disconnected, but after the halfway point the story comes together. The Golden Compass series is rather dark in its nature, and I'm glad that the movie didn't pull any punches with the supernatural combat (which is awesome, specifically when the witches and bears do battle). Some liberty is taken with the story as expected, and many church references are renamed, but the quality of the story never suffers. I recommend the movie and I look forward to seeing the rest of the trilogy completed.