The Golden Compass (Widescreen Single-Disc Edition)

I watched this movie with no memory or knowledge of the controversy surrounding its release. Apparently both sides of the religion and free speech argument had plenty to say. I'm not here to stir that pot. Certainly the controversy precipitated a mediocre box office showing upon the film's release just before Christmas. Yet, the box office intake quadrupled once it hit the international scene, garnering over $360 million. Instead, I rented the DVD with only the knowledge that my wife and kids refused to watch. No matter, there are plenty of films they have self banned to include the Harry Potter series, and I had nothing else to watch on a Sunday afternoon while they were at church.

As the plot opens we are thrust into a fantasy world where our characters exist in a parallel universe. Their souls exist in the form of different kinds of animals called daemons and walk side by side with their human hosts throughout their lives. The kid's daemons can change shapes into different animals, but by the time they are adults the souls become one kind of animal. Our main character Lyra (Dakota Blue Richards) is an orphan who is somewhat of a leader among her peers and challenges her friends, foes, and adults to get to the bottom of a mystery. Her child friends are being kidnapped by the "Gobblers" and taken to a far away place in the north. Her mission is to somehow find them and save them from whatever dark fate awaits them. At the start of her journey we meet her uncle Lord Asriel (Daniel Craig) who is trying to prove the existence of "dust" which he believes exists in a parallel universe and enters a person's body through their daemon. Lord Asriel obtains funding from the College and proceeds north to prove his theory. Mean time Lyra his taken away from the college by Mrs. Coulter (Nichol Kidman) under the story of being her assistant. Lyra is a little wary of her new found supporter and before she leaves the college is given an alethiometer by the master of the college. The alethiometer, also called the Golden Compass, is an ancient device banned by the Magesterium, the ruling religious party, because it can be used to find the answer to any question as long as the user is skilled in the interpretation of the device. Confusing yet? Lyra escapes her would-be supporter and captor and enlists the services of many adults to include the Gyptians, a head witch, a Texan aeronaut (Sam Eliot), and an outcast armored polar bear as she heads north to solve the mystery and rescue her friends. The pace and sequence of this trek was at a minimum confusing and downright disjointed. I found myself wondering who edited this thing because the transitions from one plot line to the next were as if something important was left on the cutting room floor. For example, Lord Asriel is captured by some nasty tribes of the north and for nearly an hour of the flick we don't know his fate. Then suddenly a narrator says basically he's OK because he bribed his captors....what? The ending seemed absolutely abrupt, and apparently the original ending was deleted in order to bring it back as the start of a planned sequel. On the good side however, the special effects were excellent and garnered an Academy Award. The acting OK and predictable, especially the somewhat type cast antagonist Nichol Kidman and our rustic hero Sam Eliot. I'm thinking kids could probably follow this better than I and would be thoroughly entertained. We have a kid hero on a mission of mercy assisted by all her new found friends and she is the only one that can read the Golden Compass to keep everyone on track. I probably won't be buying this one, but it is certainly worth a watch...that is unless you have religious reservations.

I imagine the books are actually more descriptive than the movie for I found this to be somewhat confusing at times. The premise itself lasts for a mere few moments in the film, but, while it sounded interesting, I am sure it is better and more clearly explained in the book. All this talk of Dust and Daemons and witches and prophecies, it was all just too much to fit into the span of 2 hours.

The acting is all quite good, though Daniel Craig is barely in the film. The special effects are truly wonderful and first rate and is really the only thing that keeps your interest.

The plot is all over the place and jumbled. And it is certainly not helped by the awful editing. It jumps way too quickly from scene to scene and we never really know how much time has passed. That is probably the biggest flaw of the film, next to the script.

Furthermore, the ending that pretty much leaves off in the middle of nowhere is desperately in need of a sequel. But from what I have heard, since the movie turned out to be not so profitable, no word of a second movie has been heard, which is unfortuate. Perhaps as a trilogy, as it was meant to be, it can turn out to be a perfectly watchable and possibly enjoable film. But as it stands right now, it is unimpressive and pointless.

This movie (and I assume the book) started out with what could have been a great premise. People in a parallel universe live with their souls outside their bodies.

The special effects in the movie made the scenes wonderful to watch. However, I didn't go to the theater in order to go to a kind of moving picture art museum; I went to see a movie. And a movie requires enough character development for me to care whether or not the heroine lives or dies or the person she's trying to save lives or dies. Consequently, there's no comparison between this and Lord of the Rings. None at all.

People who read the book already might have had the character development in their heads. And if so, maybe that's how someone could give this thing three stars.

So what's even worse than the lack of character development (and therefore lack of a story worth caring about) is that the movie didn't even get close to resolving like Lord of the Rings did at the end each segment. And you can't call the end of the movie a cliff hanger because....you don't care what happens to the characters next.

But the thing that was most alarming about this film was how directly the author of the book (or the film makters)attack the Catholic Church, if not people of faith in general. I had heard some of the religious hoopla about the film before I went to see it, but there's been religious hoopla about movies before that didn't amount to very much(Example: The Last Temptation of Christ) That is NOT the case here.

Even though I'm not Catholic and am very aware of the Catholic Church's troubled history and some of its abuses, I could see that this movie was not a representation of a difference of opinion OR simply lopsided in its representation of organized religion. It was a hate-fest. I suppose this should have been clear from the beginning of the movie--before I saw how the Catholic imagery was handled--but I was trying to give the movie the benefit of the doubt. However, I doubt there's another reason to name the souls outside the body "demons," no matter how you spell it, other than to put Catholics and people who believe in God down. (Except for creating enough religious hoopla and controversy that people go to see the movie)

Then again, it also seems like the author must have been hurt very deeply at some point by someone who CLAIMED to be a person of faith which is a very sad thing. And I'm sorry for him or her.

But back to the movie--I almost hope someone redoes the movie (and the book it's based on) and does the story again without the anti-religious messages. I know there's a good story to be built around humans having their souls outside the body. I just know it.

I just had to stop and do a quick review of this movie. This is the first review of a movie I have ever done. The reason I had to review this one in particular is because while glancing through DVDs on Amazon.com I noticed this one had only 3 stars. What??? I thought this was one of the best movies I've seen in a long time. Definitely one of the best "family" movies ever. Sometimes I find myself falling asleep during "family" movies. Not this one. The only thing I can think of to why it has only 3 stars is because of the bad rep it got before they even started filming it. I'm one of those people who like to actually view a movie before talking about it. I, like many other people, got the emails "warning" me not to watch it. It's anti-God. You will be supporting Atheists. Well, I have also watched Weeds, Hostel, and Veggie Tales. Does that make me a smoking, serial killer, who sees talking Veggie's??? It's a movie people! If you haven't seen this movie, please watch it! I believe you and your family will love it and will be waiting for the sequel to come! Oh, and I'm sure the people who rate this movie badly are the same people who rate Harry Potter poorly just because there are witches in it.

Due to the not so great reviews and the supposed complexity of the story if you didn't read the books, I was not expecting to really like this one, but hey the library was renting it. I watched it with my 8 year old, and we had to laugh as we remembered picking it out at the library and a friend of my daughter saw the movie in my hands and proclaimed "it has no God in it". A lot of movies don't, so I didn't really care.
Anyways, we put the movie in and I told my daughter to really pay attention and I was able to follow and 'get' what they were talking about even though I hadn't read any of the books. I enjoyed the movie quite a bit, even though my 8 year old couldn't follow it all, and I think she was even a bit spooked at some scenes. I put it up there with the Narnia series, definitely better than Eragon and even better than the latest dreary Harry Potter. I still don't get the religion aspect of it, I watch a movie for enjoyment, not critical analysis.
Entertaining!