Golden Compass

While much controversy has surrounded the release of The Golden Compass, I will not be addressing any of it here. I have followed the press and feel that it tainted my experience of the sneak preview that I caught this weekend.


This movie, based on the first of an award-winning YA fiction trilogy written by David Pullman, is a cautionary tale about the parental education and their lack care for their children. In a parallel universe, the children are being kidnapped from the streets by the Goblers. At first, it is just the street urchins that go missing and the only people that notice are their friends. Eventually, the kidnapping happens in the upperclass lands, right from under the noses of parents who are oblivious to the activities of their own children. When the main character, Lyra Belacqua - played by newcomer, Dakota Blue Richards - realizes that her best friend has gone missing, she embarks on a journey to rescue him after she escapes from the care of Mrs. Coulter (Nicole Kidman).


Early on in the show, Lyra is gifted with an althiometer, or Golden Compass, which is a tool that tells the truth to the questions which the beholder asks. Upon handing it to her, the schoolmaster states, "It is the Alethiometer. It tells the truth. As for how to read it, you'll have to learn by yourself. Tell no one of this, especially not Mrs. Coulter." And then, the adventure begins.


This tale claims that each person's soul is embodied in an animal companion, called a daemon, and if you hurt the person, you hurt the accompanying animal or vice versa. This storyline allotted for some indirect brutality to children that was, at times, breathtaking in the intensity. Due to that and the content regarding the kidnapping and brutality of children, which is not explicit on the screen but stressed in the underlying current of the entire film, I highly recommend you screen it prior to allowing your children to view it.


Captivating in the transitional gold-dust effects during Lyra's interaction with the Golden Compass and with all of the CGI characters animal presentations representing each character's "daemon," this makes for an entertaining movie, as long as you can get passed the theme. This movie is creatively filmed so that the violence is seemingly muted. There is absolutely no trace of blood anywhere in any of the battle scenes and the noticeable lack thereof was actually something the people in my group mentioned with surprise.


I was entranced with the gigantic armored polar bear, Iorek Byrnison (voice by Ian McKellen), that was one of the main characters. Other than the obvious CGI scenes with Lyra riding the back of the bear, he was believably real. I relished the sensations as the theater thundered with his roars and his heavy footfall.


In her first starring role, Miss Richards executes a believable performance as the uncomfortably impertinent Lyra Belacqua, although not well enough for me to fall in love with her as I have done with Freddie Highmore who is the voice of her daemon. I was quite bored with Nicole Kidman's performance. While her impressive height and slender stature was obviously played upon with her costumes, something was completely off with their choices of make-up and hairstyles. Ms. Kidman's performance was shallow, empty and lacked the fire that the character has in the book.


If you are an "effects" fiend like me, see this movie on a big screen in a theater with an excellent and dependable sound system. It will lose its impact on DVD. While I highly recommend this movie, even at a full-price screening, it is not an appropriate film for young hearts and eyes. The parents who brought their young children spent most of their time out in the hall with wailing children. It is a loud, clashing movie with a few scenes of jumpy-shock-value shots that sent the kids into fits. While the violence is muted, it is still an obvious part of the movie and the underlying theme of the entire film is the disappearing children and what is being done to them.




all photos courtesy of imdb.com