The Golden Compass (Widescreen Single-Disc Edition)

This movie is fantastic! The screen writers followed the book as closely as possible. There are a few minor changes but nothing that altered the storyline. If you haven't read the books, read them because they will explain some of what you see in the movie and prepare you for future movies in the series.

This movie is real dull, without much of a plot or story. The worst thing of all is that THERE IS NO CONCLUSION. A real ripoff. I guess they expect us to wait with baited breath for a sequel to finish the story? There were also some good actors totally wasted in this drivel, like Christopher Lee and Derek Jacoby. I also wasn't expecting this to be children's movie, but that is what it is. Oh, by the way, they ripoff Chronicles of Narnia. They wish they were 1/100th as good as Narnia. Even the voice of the ice bear was a ripoff of the talking lion of Narnia.

In some (nearly) parallel universe, things are quite different. Human beings walk alongside their "demons", almost tangible avatars of their souls. The war between church and academia (irrational faith and enlightened reason) has virtually been lost to the "Magisterium", a workable stand-in for organized religion. The only hope for freedom is an understanding of "dust", some quasi-cosmic substance that flows into humans through their demons. The Magisterium sees Dust as a threat to their rule (if only because it's not found in their scriptures, and nothing that powerful can remain outside their control) and plans both covertly and in the open to cut man off from it.

Lyra Belacqua, a precocious 12 year older living in some otherworldly version of Oxford, finds herself at the crossroads of this conflict. Her uncle, Lord Asriel (Daniel Craig) mounts an expedition to the North where the Aurora Borealis reveals a cascade of Dust flowing to a man through his demon. Marissa Coulter (Nicole Kidman in seduction-overdrive), an agent of The Magisterium, takes an extreme interest in Lyra and offers to take her on an expedition North. Before leaving (and once Coulter's odiousness has clearly emerged from her charming demeanor) the master of her school gives her the last remaining Alethiometer - the Golden Compass - an instrument which she doesn't understand. The master's commands are simple - keep it secret, keep it safe. It is only after Coulter virtually imprisons Lyra in her London home (looking like Kensington, with carriages drawn by lightning instead of horses) that Lyra realizes that something is very wrong. Snooping around, Lyra finds evidence linking Coulter with the systematic kidnapping of children (including at least one of her friends) and escapes with her Alethiometer. Hooking up with Gyptians (tough but honorable sea-going nomads) in search of their own lost children, Lyra heads North.

In her search for her missing friend, Lyra will encounter Iorek Byrnison (I know I couldn't have spelled that right - just think of a polar bear with battle armor and the voice of Ian Mckellen) a witch named Serrafina Pekkala (let's just put spell-check aside, this is a parallel universe) played by Eva Green, an "aeronaut" from Texas (and therefore played by Sam Elliot) and various other characters. Her search will bring her to a remote polar research station run by the Magisterium where cruel experiments are conducted on children to separate them from their demons, their personal conduits for Dust.

NOW THAT I'VE WAXED ON THE STORY...
There's a lot of material underlying the "Dark Materials" trilogy, of which GC is the 1st part. Unfortunately, none of it actually works its way into the narrative of this movie. The script excised much of the story's barb against organized religion, reducing the Magisterium to a bunch of generic odious characters in funny clothes plotting something, and ever extending their authority. It's hard to imagine how well the flick would have done were its script larded down with polemic of any kind (let alone anti-religious), but the movie fails because it fails to become a story about anything. It would be easy for the fans to blame Hollywood for taking god out of the picture (as ironic a charge that is for the left) but fantasy stories have always been based on characters who were analogs for those of real life (or acknowledged as such in real life), and The Magisterium of the books could have been replaced with one just as potent without condescending to religious viewers. I mean, this is a parallel universe - it's all about finding different versions of what we already recognize.

Unfortunately, rather than playing shell-games with its symbols, GC decides not to play anything at all. The Magisterium never becomes more than generic baddies (and because they don't do much at all, its hard to envision them as villains at all); there's a war between polar bears that will see Iorek returned to the throne - even though the bears as a whole never become a factor in the story once that happens; there are witches and an evil army of cossak-looking guys, scientists and ofcourse Mrs. Coulter. There's plenty of CGI designed to make us think that things are happening, and the story includes a northbound journey to make it seem like the story is going somewhere when it doesn't. The movie climaxes on a pitched battle between the cossak-looking guys on one side and witches, gyptians and Iorek on the other - it's old stuff to anybody who sat through Narnia and at least 2 of the Rings movies, and since it's shot at night, it's harder to see what's going on. Though the movie preserves at least some of the book's rich material, the narrative sloppily integrates it into the story - using embarrassingly obvious expository dialog and bombarding Lyra with a number of characters who exist if only to show/tell Lyra what to do next. Virtually every plot element in the story is told to us rather than discovered by Lyra. (The Alethiometer is supposed to tell truth, but it to becomes a convenient plot device, a GPS for Lyra to navigate the story's otherwise unnavigable byways.)

There's actually a moment in GC that promises what the rest of the movie fails to deliver. Lyra, having been chased to the doors of her College-home by a band of Gyptian children, warns them back. She threatens them with unspeakable horrors should they cross the gates of the school. The gyptian boy isn't one to suffer threats easily, so he and Lyra engage in duel of wits that ends with the combatants cheerily scheduling a later time to resume their war. The scene embodies everything that the rest of the movie doesn't: a horrible fate, an unceasing belief (or unceasing refusal to believe) in it, and the unique capacity of children to create a great story, live it and know its limits.

If you want a clean movie the whole family can watch and enjoy, this one fills the bill. If you appreciate CGI, don't miss this movie. It has some of the best CGI of any movie I have ever watched. You will have a hard time believing the animals and birds that accompany the characters in the movie are not real. The bonus DVD that accompanies the movie is almost as entertaining as the movie and if you are curious as to how such movies are made, maybe more interesting!

I found the animated animal spirit companions to the human characters extremely enchanting. I thought the computer animated renderings of the animals were very beautiful and believable. But I agree with some of the
other reviewers in their assessment of the plot. Unless having read the book first (and I haven't), it's difficult to determine exactly what "dust" is, what threat it holds, and the purpose of the Coulter character and her vendetta against children. I also found the fights between the bears and the other animals to be quite violent, as was the scene where Coulter slapped her daemon so hard he flew across the room. I realize children are exposed to far more violence than this in films today, but I think it warrants comment. The acting was decent, but not a stretch for any of the performers involved. The ending, not surprisingly, left the heroine on a continuation of her journey to reunite with her uncle, which undoubtedly calls for a sequel. Perhaps the second installment will do a better job of clarifying many of the shadows cast in this first film.