The Golden Compass

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The Golden Compass

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The Golden Compass

Nicole Kidman, Daniel Craig, Dakota Blue Richards, Ben Walker, Freddie Highmore

In a parallel universe, young Lyra Belacqua journeys to the far North to save her best friend and other kidnapped children from terrible experiments by a mysterious organization.

Id: 10889848

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The Golden Compass Recent Reviews
  • phubbs1
    April 7, 2009
    phubbs1
    Io be honest i just didn't follow this, its like a cross between LOTR, Narnia and Harry Potter and frankly im getting so bored of it, there're just all the same. There's nothing new here as its all been done with Potter, magical animals, spirits, witches etc I just cant see how i...( read more)t can be rated. Sure the effects are nice and the animals look cool but thats it. The cast is pretty awful, or at least Kidman and Craig anyway, the rest is a top notch bunch of English actors but again that has been done with Potter and LOTR, its seems to be the same classical English actors repeating themselves in a variety of silly fantasy films. Im sure kids will like it, maybe, it is long and I think its boring so maybe not. Without knowledge of the book its all double dutch haha and I have never heard of it before the film. Best bit was the polar bear fight er...and thats it, I could almost see a legion of elfs and Hobbits coming over the hill lol yawn.
  • ladyp1964
    January 4, 2009
    ladyp1964
    strange story, interesting though not something I couldn't live without....... Having not read the book I can't comment on that one.
  • Camus123
    December 28, 2008
    Camus123
    This movie took the book, removed all parts that might be in any way objectionable and served up the sum of its parts in a morsel that is palatable to the mainstream.
    I know that this is a movie review and not a book review, but having read this trilogy it is difficult to ignore...( read more) the total disregard for the philosophy, intelligence, and courage inherent in the actual series.
    Watching this movie pained me. Sacrificed on the altar of CGI our story is chopped up and delivered at such a frantic pace that I do not know how anyone who did not read the books could even understand it.
    We have taken the brave swagger of Lyra and turned it into Pippi Longsticking. They jump from scene to scene with no regard to how they come together much less the chronology from the books. All important messages to be conveyed are either removed or diluted to a point where they are pretty much unrecognizable.
    We have in this movie a simplified children's story that hardly an adult could understand due to its total mistreatment in the scattered telling. Instead of the profound we walk away from this movie with the thought "That kinda looked cool" running through our heads.
    I am so sick of Hollywood catering to the religious wrong. How about some original thought? I am saddened and hope that this will be redone someday to do it justice because the actual series, "His Dark Materials" by Pullman is fantastic. and begs, no, demands to be told properly.
  • kevinjoy98
    December 23, 2008
    kevinjoy98
    In a parallel universe, young Lyra Belacqua journeys to the far North to save her best friend and other kidnapped children from terrible experiments by a mysterious organization.
  • AgentLexi2132
    December 23, 2008
    AgentLexi2132
    ''It's an alethiometer. It's a truth measure - a golden compass. It enables you to see what others wish to hide.... You can ask any sort of question you can imagine. Once you've got your question framed...''

    In a parallel universe, young Lyra Belacqua journeys to the far

    ...( read more) North to save her best friend and other kidnapped children from terrible experiments by a mysterious organization.

    Dakota Blue Richards: Lyra

    His Dark Materials: The Northern Lights, the original name for the book, in England. What a mysterious, enticing title for a book. The Golden Compass? Well, it doesn't quite have the same effect on us, does it? The use of the American name of the book for the film really didn't falter my opinion of the film, but as early warning signs come, it doesn't get much more obvious than this. We should have assumed from the start, that this was going to be a very different venture, to the book.

    ''There are many universes and many Earths parallel to each other. Worlds like yours, where people's souls live inside their bodies, and worlds like mine, where they walk beside us, as animal spirits we call daemons.''

    As a huge fan of Philip Pullman's epic trilogy, I had been eagerly anticipating this film adaptation for a long while. I had fallen in love with the books a while back, not due to the fantastical elements, but due to the way it introduced this fantastical parallel universe to the reader in a slow, subtle, familiar way and made it feel real and tangible. The books are gritty, rugged and at times violent, and the stories' themes are philosophical and even spiritual in a way. It grieves me to say that the film misses the point, concentrating instead, on the fantasy, the action and the giant talking polar bears.
    Franchises and series like 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 massive 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 Golden Compass manages to remain dull and unimaginative. Its idea that these people (who inhabit an alternate 'Earth) have their souls on their outside is an interesting one, yet on screen, we are supposed to relate to these characters by way of their animal accomplices, for instance: Lord Asriel's (Craig) is a beastly feline: strong and powerful who knows what's what; Marisa Coulter (Kidman) has a monkey of some sort; suggesting not a playful and cheeky persona but one that could change from good to aggressive very quickly; the other example is of the hero; Lyra Belacqua (Richards) whose daemon keeps changing from cat to bird to chipmunk suggesting she hasn't quite 'found herself' yet although the fact she's only about ten probably has something to do with this. Fine, you think but the faceless enemy soldiers that guard utopian government looking buildings as disturbing experiments go on inside are all accompanied with either Doberman dogs or wolves ? do the guards not have personalities? This is a glaring lack of consistency.

    ''It's an alethiometer. It tells the truth. You are meant to have it. You keep the alethiometer to yourself, it's of the utmost importance to yourself, to all of us, and perhaps to all creation.''

    The actual character hero of Lyra was also a problem. There are too many scenes that rely on child acting in this film and what's more, Lyra goes about her adventure as if she's twenty years older that what she actually is. She is smarter than she should be; braver and more of a leader than she should be. More often than not, she achieves things adult characters cannot: persuading the polar bear to join them; destroying the 'cutting' device and being able to negotiate her way out of death with a king polar bear who is a hundred times more powerful than she is. Of course if she was any older, the film would be Tomb Raider mixed with Narnia but that's a different story. I'm sure there was faithful material to the book somewhere in The Golden Compass but there's me thinking it was perhaps going to go down the route of Indiana Jones or The Mummy, how wrong I was. The film sets up its idea for its narrative in a similar adventure way, what with the mentioning of the alternative world (our world) and the giving of the compass to Lyra and yet it totally ignores its roots from here on. This film basically turns into a recruitment process with Kidman's and Craig's characters hovering around in the background although never creating a presence, this is cannon fodder for nine year olds, but then there's the complicated narrative and the fact other films of this genre, were for people of all ages anyway.

    What we are led to believe is that in this world, they haven't made the technological advancements like cars and aeroplanes (their cars resemble horse and carts without the horses and they fly around in blimps) yet build vast utopias, that still find room to house criminals of some description, whose main aim is to 'cut' away the souls of children at the first mention of the word 'dust' ? yes, it's that bizarre. Mangled in with this, the character of Iorek Byrnison (McKellan - who is a CGI Polar Bear hilariously resembling a down and out P.I. in a film noir when first introduced) is given a sub-plot involving him rediscovering his 'armour' (metaphor for masculinity) and from there, he develops into a really guilty example of a fatherly figure for Lyra after it's established she lost her father previously. Thrown in amongst all this tosh is a CGI fist-fight between two polar bears trying to prove who is 'king'.

    It is the right time to mention the cast: Nicole Kidman delivers an eerie and chilling rendition of Marisa Coulter; a person who knows people high up in whatever hierarchy the school has. She also seems to get nastier and nastier as the film progresses but some of her lines she's given do not aid her in her career: "I'll find you, Lyra!" Oh, how evil. But the biggest disappointment is Daniel Craig who's present for about three scenes and then vanishes.
    This will be the easiest pay-cheque, he'll ever pick up, unless they make a sequel. In short, avoid this film even if you are a fan of the genre.

    ''One compass remains, however, and only one who can read it.''
  • Marischa2
    January 4, 2010
    Marischa2
    its almost like narnia.
  • dennipeke
    December 31, 2009
    dennipeke
    It's a pretty good trilogy of books but a very bad adaptation, they didn't give the message
  • poundingonthedoor
    December 26, 2009
    poundingonthedoor
    This thing sucks if you've read the book, I'll say that now. Even for most audiences that haven't read the book, it's not that great. Made more for kids 11 or 12 and under, I think. Many important things were left out, many important things were changed and Lyra was even genetica...( read more)lly incorrect!!!(lol) Quite a disappointment, this movie. Especially if you've read and enjoyed the books. Sir Ian McKellen did play Iorek's voice fantastically, and Daniel Craig made a perfect Lord Asriel, but things were put far too bluntly in this movie. See it if you will, but I don't exactly recommend it. The only highlights were when Iorek and Iofur(Ragnar in the movie) fought, and the skirmish at the end. That's it.
  • perfectpuppy9779
    December 26, 2009
    perfectpuppy9779
    Great movie, I LOVED it!
  • ebchwill78
    December 24, 2009
    ebchwill78
    The devil is right and Jesus is wrong, that is the message of this film
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