The Golden Compass

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.

I remembered that I liked this movie when I watched it a while ago. But I did not remember that it was THIS good! The only reason for the far too low rating(s) that I can see is christian fanatics that finds ANYTHING resembling criticism towards the church as heresy, or people that have read the book(s) and find that this movie have deviated too far from the original. But for me, the acting, the plot, the visuals, the special effects and the daemons running and flying around, was amazing. If you as I am, are not a christian fundamentalist, or have read the book(s) and like fantasy, I really believe that you as well will enjoy this movie.

The golden compass is a pretty comparable children's movie. The acting is well done, both from the kids and adults. The cast ensemble is made up of some fairly prominent names. I quite enjoyed watching, though I'm still not sure I get what dust is, or why the college let Nicole Kidman take the girl "as an assistant". It was all fairly good, watching ioryek slap the jaw off a polar bear was a highlight. But my main grievance is that they set up for a sequel that never happened, leaving the ending lacking.

I am among those who have not read the book and I found it to be initially confusing and boring but the film picks up after Lyra is taken into Mrs. Coultier's lavish house. The pace picks up but it may seem a little too rushed. The ending was sort of continuous, requiring a sequel. I would have liked to see the second movie but unfortunately, there is a rumour that it may not happen which is quite a pity because I thought 'The Golden Compass' was going somewhere. It is not the best movie of its kind but I thought it was not so bad either. The special effects are good. The characters are lively. I loved the daemons. It's got quite a stellar cast but only Nicole Kidman gets enough screen time to be noticed. Gorgeous, glamorous and deceitful, could not picture anyone else for the part of Mrs. Coultier. (I am almost sure that the rest were promised a lengthier role in the sequels). Daniel Craig only has about 15 minutes but he makes the best of it. Sam Elliot is funny. Dakota Blue Richards is a confident young actress and she carries off Lyra well. Overall I enjoyed the world that was created in this movie and the characters. Too bad that it's left incomplete.

Literary adaptations are always a testy business, with filmmakers consistently trying to appease fans of the original work while still making sufficient changes to make the material work as a film. With this in mind, as well as the inevitable uproar from various religious sects, The Golden Compass, adapted from the first book in Philip Pullman's 'His Dark Materials' trilogy was hardly an easy sell, and by no means a sure bid for box office success. Despite all of the negative factors against it, the film, while not the timeless fantasy epic it would like to be, proves a decent adaptation of Pullman's work and a sufficiently entertaining piece of escapism to boot.

Despite initial skepticism, director Chris Weitz of American Pie infamy demonstrates sufficient care and interest in his subject matter to bring the novel to life in a suitably quality fashion. Despite the occasional moment of flashy cinematography or special effects giving the impression of a child experimenting with his film-making toys, Weitz demonstrates a firm and steady grip on his film, keeping the tone light for a younger audience while retaining the occasional darker moment from the book to keep fans satisfied. Weitz's screenplay, while nowhere near as disappointing as it could have been, falls prey to the typical film fantasy pitfall of consistently struggling to force-feed as much information to the audience as possible as quickly and in as simplistic a fashion as possible, leading to a somewhat rushed narrative and an irritating lack of character development or exposition. Fans of the source material will likely grumble due to the occasional creative change, some more noticeable than others, while those unfamiliar with Pullman's books may be lost in a flurry of confusion, bombarded with a constant array of new names, faces and theoretical concepts. However, despite a disappointingly simplistic tone, the sheer enjoyment factor of the novel is not lost, and such is the film's primary strength: entertainment, if at the cost of profundity.

The special effects are for the most part top notch - the shapeshifting daemon effects are impressively integrated, the armoured bear fight is without question the pure, unfiltered exhilarating spectacle of the year, and the final mass battle sequence is similarly thrilling. The film's sets, costumes and props are spellbinding, easily giving the viewer the sense of being immersed in an imaginative alternate world with all of the visual splendour befitting such a fantasy epic. However, the film's musical score is a painful rehash of far too many clichéd epic film scores of late - far too overdone to be in the least emotionally affecting.

The stellar cast prove to be the film's high point, each inhabiting their roles with a comfort suggesting they had been born to play their respective parts. Newcomer Dakota Blue Richards is a revelation, surpassing the wooden efforts of most other child actors and carrying her lead role with ease, holding her own alongside her incredibly accomplished adult co-stars. Nicole Kidman is sheer perfection as the malevolent yet hypnotic Mrs. Coulter, effortlessly walking away with the show - every moment on screen, every glance, every movement is entirely in character, so fully does Kidman make the role her own. Daniel Craig proves a very fitting choice as scientific explorer Lord Asriel, making good use of his far too fleeting screen time, though one can't help but wish his character had a slight bit more of an edge to him.

Sam Elliot gives his strongest performance in years, instilling sardonic aeronaut Lee Scoresby with an offbeat charisma and sly humour wonderfully fitting the role and Eva Green is an ethereal and captivating presence as mysterious witch Serafina Pekkala. The somberous tones of Ian McKellan prove ideal in breathing life and soul into armoured bear Iorek Byrnison, and young Freddie Highmore is well cast as the voice of Lyra's daemon, Pantalaimon. Derek Jacobi and Simon McBurney give strong, if one dimensional performances as heads of the ominous Magesterium organization, as does Christopher Lee, whose 'blink-and-you-miss- him' role appears to be nothing less than a blatant cash in on The Lord of the Rings, but who delivers his one line well at any rate.

While fans of the novels may lament the watering down of the philosophical undertones of Pullman's novel, and the film being directed towards a younger audience, on the whole, despite the inescapable criticisms, as a sprawling piece of fantasy escapism, immersing the viewer in a world of armoured bears, daemons and witches, the film is a rousing success. It's just a shame to see such a strong premise fraught with such an overbearing air of caution and safety to please the lower common denominator, and one can't help but wish the producers had been slightly more daring, and captured a trace more of Pullman's nervy grit and spark to make the film a slightly less generic Hollywood blockbuster, and more satisfying overall. The film certainly isn't the 'next Lord of the Rings' which New Line certainly seems to intend for it to become, but an enjoyable and sufficiently impressive effort to warrant the next installment in the series, The Subtle Knife being made.

-7.5/10