Film Review: the Golden Compass
the Golden Compass
A film adaptation of one of my favourite books - Northern Lights by Philip Pullman. Lyra (Dakota Blue Richards) lives in an alternate universe, where people's souls are embodied by animals (called daemons). She lives a somewhat wild life around one of the Oxford University colleges. However, the children she plays with are starting to disappear, and it may have something to do with the experiments and expeditions of her uncle, Lord Asriel (Daniel Craig), and with the mysterious and fascinating Mrs. Coulter (Nicole Kidman). Her involvement takes her on an adventure with river-faring Gyptians, and their leader, Lord Faa (Jim Carter) to the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard. Here, with the help of warrior polar bears, witches (their queen played by Eva Green) and balloonist Lee Scoresby (Sam Elliot, she discovers the full horror of what is happening to the lost children.
Whilst this adaptation is by no means a travesty of the original book, it suffers from the same problem as the Harry Potter films, in that all the important events from the book are shown, but the intervening material, which would put these events in context, is omitted, leaving the whole thing a little unengaging. The landscapes are effectively portrayed, and the CG bears and daemons are effective - but they fail to be as breathtaking as the Middle Earth of the Lord of the Rings films. Richards' performance as Lyra was reasonable but not outstanding (q.v. Tobias in Sweeney Todd - much more impressive). I found many of the actors a bit bland in their roles (Kidman, Craig, Green, Elliot). For me, the only performances that really shone were Carter as the Gyptian leader and several small parts played by Simon McBurney (Fra Pavel), Christopher Lee and Derek Jacobi (Magisterium members).
Some people seem to be saying this film is anti-Christian, but surely the whole point is that in Lyra's world, the Catholic Church has taken a totally different route from that in ours. The third book is rather explicitly anti-Christian in places, but I don't see the problem with this film. You might as well complain that Ice Age is anti-creationist.