On Film: The Golden Compass

Directed and Written by Chris Weitz

Starring Dakota Blue Richards, Freddie Highmore,

Nicole Kidman, Daniel Craig, Ian McKellen, Clare

Higgins, Jim Carter, Tom Cortenay, Sam Elliott,

Christopher Lee, Kathy Bates, Daniel Jacobi

I decided to peek at what other reviewers had to say about THE GOLDEN COMPASS before I wrote my own, which is something I usually won’t do. I was curious about the controversy surrounding it. Instead, I learned how annoying I can sound sometimes.

I will never say ‘the book is better’ in a review as long as I live. Maybe.

THE Movie

THE GOLDEN COMPASS suffers from the same weaknesses that any epic fantasy or science fiction novel squeezed into two hours of screen time may suffer; it has the feeling of being rushed. The alternative to this is either to leave out or gloss over so much that we have no idea what’s going on, or to stop and lecture us on the flora and fauna of this magical kingdom. We have to be introduced into a whole new world with concepts and creatures and rules unfamiliar to us, yet still have the narrative flow maintained. Considering this, THE GOLDEN COMPASS does a fantastic job given the immensely detailed source material it came from.

Most of the reviews I read have lamented that the book was better. I’ve done the same on numerous occasions. However, having not read the book before seeing this, I don’t have this comparison to go by, nor should I need it. We’re reviewing the film on its own merits, and the quality of the book compared to the film shouldn’t matter unless you actually need to read the book to understand what the characters were talking about (as I have heard people say about Lynch’s DUNE).

I thought the movie THE GOLDEN COMPASS was beautiful, exciting and fun – and it inspired me to start reading the book as soon as I got home. The rushed pacing may not give as much time for character development that is deserved, but after reading the first 100 pages of the novel I am very impressed in how writer/director Chris Weitz used scenes, dialogue and a very brief narration at the beginning to show concepts that took pages to explain. The actions of the characters are changed and some of the scenes may be removed or take place in a different order, but in the end I was given an incredibly entertaining experience that seemed much shorter than the one hour fifty-three minutes it ran.

The world of THE GOLDEN COMPASS is a parallel word to our own and, in the beginning, takes place in Oxford and London. All people have a sentient animal companion called daemons that they cannot be separated from. Nicole Kidman is brilliantly evil (we’re talking Bond-villain bad) as the beautiful and charming Mrs. Coulter (whose daemon is an equally malevolent golden monkey), and I was almost sorry she wasn’t in more than half the film. Also missing for more than we expect is Daniel Craig as the gruff Lord Asriel (accompanied by his cougar). Just as Harry Potter films are all about Harry no matter how big an adult star is added to the cast, THE GOLDEN COMPASS is all about Lyra (newcomer Dakota Blue Richards), the keeper of the compass (aka the Alethiometer, a device that tells the truth) who, along her daemon Pan (voiced by Freddie Highmore, better known as Charlie in the Willy Wonka remake) travel by land, sea, airship and rampaging armored bear (Ian KcKellen) across Europe to save the children of her world and, possibly, our own. A special treat for me was seeing Christopher Lee and Derek Jacobi as members of the evil Magisterium.

The work on the CGI animals here is incredible. The detail of each one and their flawless interaction with the actors is the finest I have seen. Pan (short for Pantaliamon) is exceptionally well done, considering the challenge that children’s daemons can change into various animals whereas an adult’s daemon settles into a single shape. The biggest shock of the film was the battle between two of the armored bears, which comes to such a suddenly gruesome end that not only did I jump in my chair but also forgot for an instant that I wasn’t watching real talking bears.

About the controversy? Forget about it. This film is not anti-anything. Ignore whatever claims the naysayers have made about this, especially if they haven’t seen it for themselves or have based it on that darned book.

Overall, I highly enjoyed the film and anxiously await the next installment in the trilogy. By the time the next one is released I’ll have read all books but, if I think the book version of THE SUBTLE KNIFE is better than the movie, I’ll keep it to myself.

9/10

Fred Grimm