The Golden Compass

The Golden Compass: The Poll

****
0
No votes
*** 1/2
1
17%
***
1
17%
** 1/2
1
17%
**
1
17%
* 1/2
2
33%
*
0
No votes
1/2 *
0
No votes
0
0
No votes
 
Total votes: 6

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Post by OscarGuy »

poll added.



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Wesley Lovell
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Post by OscarGuy »

Other than the music feeling completely inappropriate and the song Lyra being musically and lyrically unfit for the production (shame on you, Alexandre Desplat), this is a pretty good little movie. I enjoyed it. The effects are spectacular, IMO. Dakota Blue Richards is good. Definitely not faux sunshine like Dakota Fanning.

The Catholic Church is really stupid for making a fuss about this film. It just plays into the film's assertion that the magesterium wants to control all human action and prevent people from questioning its position. It's pretty sad that they've just confirmed everything the film preaches against.
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Post by anonymous1980 »

:p to William Donohue.

Catholic Bishops Give Thumbs Up to 'Compass'
The U.S. Conference of [Catholic] Bishops has split with the Catholic League, the nation's largest Catholic lay group, over The Golden Compass. The League has called for a boycott of the movie, which opens Friday, claiming that it promotes atheism. But the official review of the film by the Conference says that "the good news is that ... explicit references to this church" found in the book on which the movie is based "have been completely excised." The review continues: "This is not the blatant real-world anti-Catholicism of, say, the recent Elizabeth: The Golden Age or The Da Vinci Code. Religious elements, as such are practically nil." However, William Donohue, president of the Catholic League, has insisted that the movie will encourage young people to read the book. "The idea is to sell the horrors of Catholicism and the virtues of atheism to youth," he said on Fox News Channel Wednesday.


To quote Nelson Muntz: Ha! Ha!
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The Golden Compass

4 stars

Peter Bradshaw
Tuesday November 27, 2007
The Guardian

If Darth Vader wore a blond wig, a slinky dress and a dab of Chanel behind each ear, he could hardly be as evil as Nicole Kidman, playing the gorgeous villainess Mrs Coulter in this spectacular new movie version of Northern Lights, the opening episode of Philip Pullman's fantasy series His Dark Materials.

Pullman reportedly suggested Kidman for the role. Even if he hadn't, Kidman herself would have been kicking her agent's door in to get it. This is the very best sort of part for her: statuesque, elegant, seductive, with a hint of cold steel. In many ways, it's her juiciest character since the sociopathic meteorologist in To Die For.

Mrs Coulter's unspeakable plan is to get the feisty teenage heroine Lyra into her clutches and, among other dastardly projects, grab Lyra's precious Alethiometer, or Golden Compass: a magic, fob-watch-type contraption which tells not time, but truth itself.
Lyra is played by Dakota Blue Richards, who with a name like that should really be a 27-year-old country singer from the US. Actually, she's a 13-year-old acting newcomer from Brighton, and she does well, although her rough "urchin" accent comes and goes.

The Golden Compass is set in a retro-futurist version of the real world: a faintly Gilliamesque place of bizarrely crowded neo-classic cities and Heath Robinson flying machines. Here, human beings all have their own "daemons", like witches' familiars, but benign, shape-shifting essences that incarnate that person's human spirit.

It is a world ruled over by the Magisterium, a powerful mind control cult. Boldly contesting the Magisterium is Lyra's adored uncle and guardian, the gallant Lord Asriel, who, like Indiana Jones, has a glamorous career portfolio. Asriel is a man of action, mystical seer, anthropologist and Oxford don. From his travels in the frozen north, he has found evidence of other worlds, other existences. He is thus suspected of heresy by the Magisterium, keen to impose a kind of Vatican-Caliphate-Soviet rule over all minds. Its agent, Mrs Coulter, is set to work on Lyra and also pursues a horrible plan against children generally.

Asriel is played by Daniel Craig, sporting a distinctive, non-Bond beard for the occasion, and he is a fellow of Jordan College, Oxford, which allows Lyra to live there in a little attic room and also grants her the very remarkable privilege of dining at High Table.

In her battle with the forces of regimented thinking and evil generally, Lyra finds herself making common cause with a wildly diverse band of brothers, including a cowboy-adventurer played by Sam Elliott, nomadic grandees played by Jim Carter and Tom Courtenay, and a highly aggressive polar bear called Iorek Byrnison, voiced by Ian McKellen, who has a very violent moment of bear-on-bear action with a hated usurper of his royal status. It's so violent, incidentally, that this scene might almost rule out some of the younger audience.

As with many adaptations of this sort, a lot of the novel's supporting background material which might acclimatise us to the story's strange and distinctive world has been stripped out.

You're just plunged straight into the action and have to get used to this bewildering, exotic new universe as best you can. The effect is interesting and alienating, though the tiniest bit more absurd than I think Philip Pullman would have intended. It's not hard to see which buttons this movie is hitting: Narnia, Hobbits, Hogwarts, Star Wars. Christopher Lee has a small part - and I very much hope he is given more to do in succeeding episodes.

The crowded imaginary universe of The Golden Compass takes some getting used to, and in some ways, as a non-follower of the Pullman books, I have still to be entirely sold on it. But it certainly looks wonderful, with epic dash and a terrific central performance from Nicole Kidman, who may come to dominate our children's nightmares the way Robert Helpmann's Child Catcher in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang once did ours. It has no other challengers as this year's big Christmas movie.
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Post by cam »

I will not see it: two reasons--hated the Lord Of The Rings films, and loathe Nicole Kidman as much as Hilary Swank.
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The Golden Compass * 1/2 out of ****
by Nick Schager
Posted: November 29, 2007

Like many fantasy adventures before it, The Golden Compass—the opening entry in what New Line hopes will be a lucrative franchise based on Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials novels—takes a page or three from The Lord of the Rings. This isn't, however, to say that the film is entirely modeled after J.R.R. Tolkien's opus, since it also finds time to crib from other iconic sources as well, including Star Wars, Harry Potter, and The Chronicles of Narnia. This may be inevitable given the pervasive shadow cast by those works on the fantasy fiction realm, but it nonetheless drags this would-be blockbuster down to the depths of dullness, its lavish special effects and mouthfuls of strange-sounding names incapable of masking every scenario's familiarity and the more dispiriting reality that this tale is merely the introductory (and thus resolution-devoid) chapter of a much larger saga. Consider my interest in subsequent installments un-piqued, as The Golden Compass barely generates even a ripple of involvement in its hustle and bustle, which concerns a spunky young orphan named Lyra (Dakota Blue Richards) who lives in a parallel universe to our own where souls take the form of external animal companions (known as daemons), and who finds herself swept up in a great quest upon receiving a precious truth-telling device known as the Alethiometer (a.k.a. the Golden Compass).

Desperate to retain as many of his source material's details as possible, writer-director Chris Weitz crams his story full of magical terms and concepts with a rapidity that leaves things confusing and thus meaningless, his film's breathless pace allowing for none of the gradual narrative build-up (or character establishment) that might give the later, cataclysmic events any sense of import. His featureless and forgettable action sequences are what one might expect from the man behind American Pie and About a Boy, but he does know how to shoot his leading lady, Nicole Kidman, whose nefarious Marisa Coulter proves a devilishly smiling Darth Vader decked out in gold gowns. Unlike Daniel Craig, who's stored away on the periphery for use in preordained sequels, Kidman gets ample opportunity to strut about in all her glamorously evil glory, and a scene in which she smacks her baboon daemon—and then coddles the creature with entreaties of love—amusingly casts the intolerant (and aptly named) Coulter as a better-dressed version of Margot at the Wedding's titular mommy dearest. Even Kidman's ravishing villainess, though, plays second fiddle to the film's make-believe gibberish, which focuses most intently on the plight of Iorek Byrnison, an exiled warrior polar bear (voiced by Ian McKellen) who does little other than drink whiskey, fight, and roar in countless close-ups.

As a fellow critic lamented afterward, the whole shebang is just a prolonged setup for a bear fight, which I guess should please those who like to see anthropomorphic CG animals duke it out in hand-to-hand combat. Anyone hungry for drama fashioned with wit, depth, and enchanting magic, however, will have to look elsewhere, as The Golden Compass exhibits a fervent desire to avoid subtext at any cost, a goal that extends to its treatment of the novel's much-discussed anti-Christianity allegory. In order to appease devout viewers who've complained about the adaptation's critique of their faith-based institutions, Weitz and company have taken great pains to neuter their material of any specific denominational iconography. Yet such a tack is futile, because Pullman's central metaphor remains intact enough to anger fundamentalists—the repressive ruling body known as the Magisterium is still a thinly veiled stand-in for the church, what with its cathedral-ish headquarters and its members' priestly robes and talk of "heretic." But it's also, ultimately, an asinine approach because, by stripping this anti-religion critique of any overt specificity, the filmmakers wind up watering down the only weighty thematic substance that might have made the film worth watching in the first place.
"Young men make wars and the virtues of war are the virtues of young men: courage and hope for the future. Then old men make the peace, and the vices of peace are the vices of old men: mistrust and caution." -- Alec Guinness (Lawrence of Arabia)
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Post by Big Magilla »

Don't worry, Wes, God loves an atheist who does good for the sake of doing good more than he loves a zealot who does good in hopes of gaining a higher place in Heaven.

Donahue and his organization do not speak for all Catholics, and certainly not all Christians or all pople of faith. If anything, all he will do is draw more attnetion to Pullman's works. I know my 14 year-old nephew has read at least the first book in the trilogy and it hasn't corrupted him.
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Post by Okri »

I think it's worth mentioning that the first film/book hardly touches at the depths of Pullman's anti-Christian beliefs. The Catholic League has been stating that the first one isn't too bad, but they don't want parents to buy the trilogy because it promotes atheism. And frankly, I think they have a bit of a point (though I adore the books madly).

Not that the third film will be made, and if it is made, not with the depth of anger or intellectual fervor Pullman brought.
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Post by OscarGuy »

I'll proudly plop down money to see any film that the Catholic League boycotts. Religious institutions have gone out of their way to point to the media for diluting the beliefs of their children when it's really the increasing intelligence of children. Each generation seems to be smarter than the previous and they are slowly coming to realize on their own that religion is a placebo for our their troubles. It does little to assist society that the good hearts of people can't already do (regardless of religion) and does more to segregate and isolate opposing views to the point of creating hostility where it shouldn't exist.

I'm not expecting The Golden Compass to speak to some areligious belief structure like those who've not seen it suggest. I'm not even expecting it to be more than fun, fantasy entertainment. It's a movie and anyone who's influenced to vacate their belief in god based on a movie wasn't very faithful to begin with.




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Post by atomicage »

Now guys, let's give her a break. That is the most ridiculous idea I've ever heard ("oh no, her name is Dakota, she's going to be an annoying little girl, she is a giddy little girl during her interview, what the heck is wrong with her? Doesn't she know how to act professional?"). She's a kid, who happens to be working in the film industry. Let's cut her some slack.

As for the movie, I may (or may not) skip it. Not because it looks bad, but because Pullman and I, from what I've seen in interviews, have a few conflicting interests.
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Post by rudeboy »

Pullman's books are genuinely wonderful, unique, complex works. I've been dreading the inevitably toned down film version and while I will see it, a few warm reviews have done little to change my mind. If the sequels are made, however, I'll be intrigued to see if the filmmakers have the guts to go all the way with the third installment, which should really piss off the right wing religious types.

And fear her, Damien. Saw some snippets of young Ms Dakota in interview this morning and for a child of free-spirited Brighton, she seems every bit as precocious and unbearable as her namesake.




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Post by Damien »

Oh no, not another child called Dakota!



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THE GOLDEN COMPASS
U.S. Release Date: December 7, 2007
Distributor: New Line
Director: Chris Weitz
Writer: Chris Weitz
Cast: Nicole Kidman, Daniel Craig, Eva Green, Sam Elliott
MPAA Rating: PG-13 (sequences of fantasy violence)

Directional Fantasy Loses Its Way
by Scott Holleran

From Hogwarts to Hoth, with oodles of clever literary references, The Golden Compass manages to evoke several popular movie franchises without establishing a theme of its own. Based on Philip Pullman's children's fantasy novels—roundly denounced as anti-religious by religious extremists—the star-studded adaptation starts off strong and trails off into the abyss.

That's not the fault of Dakota Blue Richards, who portrays the story's wild girl protagonist Lyra (pronounced like the Italian currency). This kid powers the first half of the computer-generated movie, grabbing one's attention with a rebellious quality that simultaneously bucks and questions authority—none of that causeless willingness to sacrifice her life like those Narnia children—and she holds her own with the boys. When an evil adult threatens her with an irrational command, the child growls like a cornered cat: "But I don't want to…"

To what end Lyra is using the title's mysterious compass—which only she can properly possess—is the movie's main obstacle. Describing the plot is nearly impossible because the exposition of the fantasy concepts is a passing thought to writer and director Chris Weitz (About a Boy), who appears to have been swept up in the frenzy of the thing, which is too bad because there are several promising fragments.

Between Gyptians—not Egyptians, though real Earthbound places are cited, too, just to confuse—and broom-based witches with no apparent interest in men, The Golden Compass pummels the viewer with countless characters, peoples and plot deviations. The worst of these involves polar bears—known as ice bears in this world—that rule entire kingdoms and hold lifelong grudges. When Lyra inexplicably begins flirting with one of them, the picture loses its way.

That climactic scene, peaking too soon and having no real impact on, or relevance to, the central story progression, is one of many that's startlingly violent—children and animals are gored and electrocuted—in a movie that's also remarkably loud. Lyra leads the way to rescue children and, introducing new terms and characters right up until the end, she attracts the attention of a band of Nazi-Catholic types (driven by Nicole Kidman), an uncle (Daniel Craig, disappearing for most of the movie) and one of those flying witches.

With an air of theatricality, fun and fantasy—battling the Vatican-ish Magisterium's minions—The Golden Compass recalls everything from Pirates of the Caribbean and Escape from Witch Mountain to The Lord of the Rings. But it lacks cohesion, as if it's mandated to include each literary invention without regard to intelligibility. The Golden Compass lets the needle spin around and around.

When it stops, with something to do with lost kids, particle dust and hints at heroic Lyra's aristocratic origins, it isn't particularly important. One of the dozens of characters asks: "Is that all?" which sums up the feeling one gets after sitting through this busy, noisy extravaganza. Certain scenes work well but it always seems like seeds are being planted without being brought to bloom.

Loaded with intellectual ammunition, such as Lyra demanding to know why someone helps her, saving self first and a noble character refusing to live in shame, religionists are right to sense that The Golden Compass is not another Biblical fantasy, but directional signals are not a sense of direction, so neither is it a secular alternative.
"Young men make wars and the virtues of war are the virtues of young men: courage and hope for the future. Then old men make the peace, and the vices of peace are the vices of old men: mistrust and caution." -- Alec Guinness (Lawrence of Arabia)
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Post by MovieWes »

Golden Compass, The B

By Emanuel Levy

There are so many original ideas and intriguing characters in "Golden Compass," the film version of Philip Pullman's first book of acclaimed trilogy "His Dark Materials," that one is willing to disregard the movie's major flaws: Chris Weitz's uninspired direction and uneven technical execution that ultimately doesn't reflect the state-of-the-art of fantasy films.

Overall, "Golden Compass" is a likable, moderately engaging, and well-acted children's fable, but it lacks the magic and unified style visionary directors such as Guillermo Del Toro, Alfonso Cuaron, and Peter Jackson would have given to such rich literary source material.

The above names are relevant for each one of these directors has made a similar film: Del Toro with his dazzling "Pan's Labyrinth," which also centers on the self-discovery journey of a young precocious girl, Cuaron, who directed the best "Harry Potter" film to date in the ongoing franchise, and Jackson, the auteur of "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy.

Thematically, "Golden Compass" is closer to the "Harry Potter" series and "The Chronicles of Narnia" than to "Lord of the Rings," New Line's Oscar-winning mega-hit triptych. Whether the studio would make all three segments of Pullman's highly praised trilogy would depend on the commercial reception to the first chapter, which opens stateside December 7, and a few days earlier in the UK and France.

In terms of scale, it's hard to think of another director who has gone from making rather small, intimate relationship movies (the best of which is "About a Boy," co-helmed with brother Paul Weitz) to large-budget, effects-driven tent pole movies. When critics claim that Hollywood doesn't offer opportunity for directors to stretch and develop, Chris Weitz should be used as a test case: "Golden Compass" follows up narrowly focused comedies Chris Weitz co-made with his brother Paul Weitz, from the light and good ("American Pie") to the bad and more serious ("American Dreamz").

The books were previously done as stage play at the National Theater. I have not seen the theatrical productions, but I have read the books and they are fantastical in both senses of the term fantasy. Admittedly, in his screen adaptation, Weitz was challenged with an enormous task, tackling a richly dense epic that's populated by numerous human characters and creatures and is multi-layered with various subplots and locations. Thus, it's daunting task that even more skillful and experienced filmmakers than Weitz would have been intimidated by.

"Golden Compass" has already stirred some controversy among religious groups (which, of course, have not seen it), due to the anti-institutional religious bent of the book, but the irony is that purists of Pullman's books might complain that the movie went too far in the other direction in defusing the overtly Catholic contents, turning the saga into one that's more about spirituality and free will than about religion per se.

We have seen fables about witches that rule the skies, and ice bears that are brave warriors, but arguably the most brilliant idea in the book, which is well-executed in the film due to the casting of the voices and acting of the humans, is the notion of attaching to every human cahracter an animal spirit that's as close to them as their own heart. This ploy not only enriches the narrative, but also enables the characters to communicate with their inner-souls (so to speak), and share their fears and hopes.

Like all morality tales, "Golden Compass" is about the battle between good and evil. In this saga, the villain is the creepy Magisterium, which seeks to control all of humanity, and is threatened by the last remaining Golden Compass and the one child who's destined to possess it: the wonderful 12-year-old protagonist Lyra Belacqua, played with confidence by the talented Dakota Blue Richards, who doesn't look or act like a child actress. (It's her first film).

When the story begins, Lyra lives as a ward of the distinguished Jordan College in Oxford. She spends her free time wandering through the streets on quests for adventures with her loyal friend Roger (Ben Walker), a kitchen boy. Wherever she goes, Lyra is accompanied by her daemon, Pantalaimon (voiced by Freddie Highmore of "Finding Neverland" and "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" fame), an ever-changing animal that serves as a voice of reason.
In short order, we are introduced to Lyra's uncle, Lord Asriel (Daniel Craig, formally dressed up, in his first post-Bond assignment), who's about to embark on a trip to the Arctic Circle to investigate a mysterious element called Dust, despite the fact that the Magisterium would do anything--including shutting down Jordan College--to abort his mission.

Meanwhile, an ominous mood begins to prevail due to rumors of some children mysteriously disappearing and being taken up north. Rumors become a terrifying reality for Lyra, when her best friend Roger goes missing. The ever-willful and determined Lyra vows to rescue Roger at all costs, which she does.

After meeting Marisa Coulter (Nicole Kidman), a beguiling scientist and world traveler who appears in the college, Lyra realizes she has been drawn into a trap designed to take away from her the Golden Compass. Given to her as a gift by the Master of Jordan College (Jack Shepherd), it's a mystical, powerful device that can tell the truth, and has the power to reveal what others wish to hide and even change the course of the future.

Embarking on a journey to rescue Roger and stop the Magisterium, Lyra meets a tribe of seafaring Gyptians, headed by Lord Faa (Jim Carter), Ma Costa (Clare Higgins) and Farder Coram (Tom Courtenay), who promise to protect her. A new, bigger alliance is formed, when the Gyptians, a mysterious witch named Serafina Pekkala (Eva Green), and Texas airman Lee Scoresby (Sam Elliott), all join forces.

From that point on, Lyra is flung into an adventure that takes her over sky and ocean to the wilds of the icy north. Arguably, the tale's most engaging chapters involve Lyra and her new, powerful ally, a bear named Iorek Byrnison (voiced by Ian McKellen in a grand, theatrical performance), who pledges to be at her service until she succeeds.

In the background, a big ominous war threatens not only Lyra’s world but all the parallel worlds beyond the northern lights. With her band of friends and allies, and the Golden Compass' power, the ever-resourceful Lyra utilizes her skills and summons all her courage to stop it.
Like all fairy tales, the tale is about the process and road rather than the outcome. To that extent, the filmmakers have tempered with the book's chronology and have imposed a more upbeat (and abrupt) ending to the movie than the one that existed in the book.

Best asset of the film is its heroine and the actress who plays her. "Golden Compass" is ultimately the story of a young girl’s journey to self-awareness and the power of her free will, set against an extraordinary world. Still forming, Lyra is wild, willful and precocious, yet the beauty of Pullman's narrative is that though the heroine is a child, there is nothing childish or even child-like about her story.

Lyra's curiosity and willful nature open the door to all kinds of mysteries. Initially, Lyra is raised among the paternal company of the Master, going through life with no knowledge that her decisions might affect others in this world, or any of the parallel worlds that exist. The notion of parallel universe may sound confusing but is explained in the film for those who have not read the books. Clearly, though it’s a well-conceived parallel world, it speaks truthfully about our own world and our own lives as children, parents and citizens of society.

But Weitz's conception and pedestrian execution are problematic. The gulf between the cosmic aspects and the personal stories, which is crucial in Pullman's book, is not well served by Weitz the scripter or helmer. The vast production of "Golden Compass" calls for striking vistas, myriad creatures, and visual effects that are simply beyond Weitz's abilities; there's nothing in his resume that indicates he can handle such task. Realizing his limitations, Weitz emphasizes the magical aspects in the various relationships rather than in the saga's potential as a dazzling spectacle. The uniformly high-level of acting manages to camouflage the film's technical shortcomings.

The distinguished cast includes Tom Courtenay, Derek Jacobi, Jack Shepherd, Ben Walker, Simon McBurney, Jim Carter, Clare Higgins, Magda Szubanski, and legendary actor Christopher Lee, whose iconic presence provides a nice punctuation, just as it did in "Lord of the Rings." The film's voices belong to actors who are just as distinguished as the humans, including Ian McKellen, Kathy Bates, Kristin Scott Thomas, Freddie Highmore, and Ian McShane. It's therefore too bad that most of them have such limited opportunity; Scott Thomas and Bates have two or three lines of dialogue.

One get the impression from the brevity of their roles, as well as that of Daniel Craig, which feels truncated, is a function of heavy editing by various people with different philosophies and tastes. Though she gets credit, vet editor Anne V. Coates was removed from the project, when two other editors, Peter Honess (Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets) and Kevin Tent were assigned to finish post-production. End result is a bumpy road, with many emotional highs but also quite a few lows, and a saga that despite good ingredients lacks narrative smoothness or fluidity, reaffirming that Weitz is not the right director for the job.

It's too bad, for while Weitz succeeds in conveying the thematic elements of a compelling fantasy about the human spirit and free will, loyalty and kindness, his "Golden Compass" lacks a sense of magic and wonder.

End Note

Pullman’s celebrated trilogy, "His Dark Materials," made its debut in 1995 with "The Golden Compass" ("Northern Lights" in the UK), followed by "The Subtle Knife" in 1997 and "The Amber Spyglass" in 2000. These books won the Whitbread Book of the Year for The Amber Spyglass, the first time the award has gone to a children’s book. To date the trilogy has sold 14 million copies around the world. He is currently writing a sequel to "His Dark Materials," entitled "The Book of Dust."

Cast

Mrs. Coulter - Nicole Kidman
Lyra - Dakota Blue Richards
Lord Asriel - Daniel Craig
Lee Scoresby - Sam Elliott
Serafina Pekkala - Eva Green
First High Councilor - Christopher Lee
Farder Coram - Tom Courtenay
Magisterial Emissary - Derek Jacobi
Roger - Ben Walker
Fra Pavel - Simon McBurney
John Faa - Jim Carter
Ma Costa - Clare Higgins
Master - Jack Shepherd
Mrs. Lonsdale - Magda Szubanski
Second High Councilor - Edward De Souza
Iorek Byrnison - Ian McKellen
Ragnar Sturlusson - Ian McShane
Pantalaimon - Freddie Highmore
Hester - Kathy Bates
Stelmaria - Kristin Scott Thomas

Credits

A New Line Cinema release presented in association with Ingenious Film Partners of a Scholastic production/Depth of Field production. Produced by Deborah Forte, Bill Carraro. Executive producers, Bob Shaye, Michael Lynne, Toby Emmerich, Mark Ordesky, Ileen Maisel, Andrew Miano, Paul Weitz.
Co-producer, Nikolas Korda.
Directed, written by Chris Weitz, based on the book "Northern Lights" by Philip Pullman.
Camera: Henry Braham.
Editors: Peter Honess, Anne V. Coates, Kevin Tent.
Music: Alexandre Desplat.
Production designer: Dennis Gassner.
Supervising art director: Richard Johnson; art directors, Andrew Nicholson, Chris Lowe.
Set decorator: Anna Pinnock.
Costume designer: Ruth Myers.
Sound: Tony Dawe.
Sound designers: Glenn Freemantle, Tom Sayers; supervising sound editor, Freemantle.
Re-recording mixers, Mike Prestwood Smith, Mark Taylor.
Senior visual effects supervisor, Michael Fink; visual effects, Rhythm & Hues, Framestore CFC, Cinesite (Europe), Digital Domain, Rainmaker Animation and Visual Effects U.K., Tippett Studio and Tippett Studio Montreal, Matte World Digital, Digital Backlot, Peerless Camera Co.; special effects supervisor, Trevor Wood; makeup and hair designer, Peter King; supervising stunt coordinator, Vic Armstrong; stunt coordinator, Paul Jennings.

MPAA Rating: PG-13.
Running time: 118 MIN.
"Young men make wars and the virtues of war are the virtues of young men: courage and hope for the future. Then old men make the peace, and the vices of peace are the vices of old men: mistrust and caution." -- Alec Guinness (Lawrence of Arabia)
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The Golden Compass
By TODD MCCARTHY
'The Golden Compass'

A New Line Cinema release presented in association with Ingenious Film Partners of a Scholastic production/Depth of Field production. Produced by Deborah Forte, Bill Carraro. Executive producers, Bob Shaye, Michael Lynne, Toby Emmerich, Mark Ordesky, Ileen Maisel, Andrew Miano, Paul Weitz. Co-producer, Nikolas Korda. Directed, written by Chris Weitz, based on the book "Northern Lights" by Philip Pullman.

Mrs. Coulter - Nicole Kidman
Lyra - Dakota Blue Richards
Lord Asriel - Daniel Craig
Lee Scoresby - Sam Elliott
Serafina Pekkala - Eva Green
First High Councilor - Christopher Lee
Farder Coram - Tom Courtenay
Magisterial Emissary - Derek Jacobi
Roger - Ben Walker
Fra Pavel - Simon McBurney
John Faa - Jim Carter
Ma Costa - Clare Higgins
Master - Jack Shepherd
Mrs. Lonsdale - Magda Szubanski
Second High
Councilor - Edward De Souza
Iorek Byrnison - Ian McKellen
Ragnar Sturlusson - Ian McShane
Pantalaimon - Freddie Highmore
Hester - Kathy Bates
Stelmaria - Kristin Scott Thomas

Another holiday movie season, another fantastic mythological universe to contend with. This time, it's the world -- or multiple parallel worlds -- of Philip Pullman's "His Dark Materials" trilogy, the first installment of which is "The Golden Compass," or "Northern Lights" in its original 1995 British publication. New Line's bid for another "Lord of the Rings" bonanza kicks off with writer-director Chris Weitz's impressively rendered but oddly uninviting adventure about a chosen girl's momentous struggle against insidious forces that would extinguish free will. Visual splendor and scent of a franchise should lure considerable crowds, especially internationally, although it's doubtful "Compass" will find a B.O. path anywhere near "Narnia," much less Middle-earth.
A sensation in the U.K., although less so Stateside, Pullman's epic is grounded in a land very much like England, with an expedition to the arctic stretches of Norway. But the work more broadly concerns the war between a rational, scientific domain and the monolithic oppression exercised by the power-mad Magisterium, a hierarchical order intent upon claiming the souls of all children. It's this undisguised anti-religious theme that has numerous groups in a lather, but perhaps more of an issue for some auds will be the film's lack of exciting uplift and the almost unrelievedly nasty treatment of the young characters by a host of aggressively unpleasant elders.

Front and center is Lyra Belacqua (newcomer Dakota Blue Richards), a 12-year-old orphan who has enjoyed the privilege of being raised at the august Jordan College. Brown-haired and with bit of a wild edge, Richards has an unusual presence for a tweeny leading lady, but certain questions immediately present themselves: If Lyra has spent her entire life in this rarefied academic environment, why does she, like her rough-and-tumble mates and best friend Roger (Ben Walker), speak with a sort of mild working-class accent and bad grammar? Although she's called an untamed rebel, her status within the institution and her connections with those around her are not well fixed at the outset.

To the horror of the Magisterium elite, Lyra's distinguished uncle, Lord Asriel (Daniel Craig), has discovered evidence in the Arctic Circle of golden dust that might establish a mystical connection between the many imagined parallel worlds. Lyra also becomes the secret recipient of the last remaining Alethiometer, or Golden Compass, a device that can provide the true answer to any question.

When Roger vanishes, Lyra jumps at the chance to go north, where abducted kids have purportedly been taken, with the shimmering Mrs. Coulter (Nicole Kidman), whose overly solicitous manner with Lyra masks an unfriendly agenda. Off they fly, above a fanciful London aboard an even more fanciful flying ship that resembles a combination of a Zeppelin and Captain Nemo's Nautilus.

A distinguishing feature of Pullman's world is that every human being has an animal companion, called a daemon, that often verbally or physically expresses what's going on inside that person. With children, including Lyra, the animal frequently changes species to reflect the unsettled nature of young personalities, whereas adults' daemons are fixed. This conceit can produce comic results when two people come into conflict and their respective daemons act it out; unusually for an ostensibly youth-oriented film, the critters are scarcely used to cutesy effect.

To its credit, "The Golden Compass" panders hardly at all in the usual kidpic ways. In fact, what Lyra finds the kidnapped children subjected to in the far north is little short of torture.

To battle the forces of evil, Lyra enlists a diverse collection of allies, among them cowboy aviator Lee Scorsesby (Sam Elliott in typically iconic form), friendly flying witch Serafina (Eva Green), some vagabonds called gyptians and, best of all, a mighty white bear named Iorek.

Pic's first great set piece is a fight to the death between Iorek and the North's bear king. Voicing these two warriors, respectively, Ian McKellen and Ian McShane try to out-baritone one another as their armored CGI counterparts roar, paw and bite until only one is left standing in a genuinely exciting sequence.

Soon thereafter comes a big, chaotic battle on ice involving multiple factions which, if not quite of "Rings"-like proportions, still packs a significant punch. Conclusion settles the drama's pressing matters for the moment, which reps a departure from the tome's cliffhanger ending, a choice perhaps made because New Line, unlike with "Rings," is waiting to gauge the reaction to "Compass" before proceeding with the next installment.

Weitz ("About a Boy"), who has never directed a film with anything like these logistics before, is saddled with conveying loads of exposition but handles the big scenes competently. Still, the prevailing tone is cold, which has nothing to do with the frigid settings of the second half, and the pic doesn't invite the viewer to enthusiastically enter into this new dramatic realm.

Evoking the technological and sartorial world of the 1930s, the visuals, decked out with almost constant CGI adornments, provide a constant feast for the eyes. Creatures, especially the bears, are strongly rendered, and the enterprise lacks for little in production values.

Kidman's Mrs. Coulter reps a problem in that her contradictory intentions can't really be sorted out; she's clearly up to no good, but she also has genuine reasons for wanting to be close to Lyra that make her obvious deception annoying. Kidman herself seems unduly brittle and unsettled under her superficial poise and elegant duds.

Craig has very little to do after his preliminaries, although presumably his role would come to the fore in later editions. Among the villainous Magisterium elders, Simon McBurney cuts the most entertainingly odious figure.

As for Richards, only time will tell if her characterization will grow beyond the willful, somewhat impatient girl who quickly adjusts to having others do her bidding. Young thesp has something going for her, but she, like the film, does not engender ready capitulation.

Alexandre Desplat's active score, while not his most distinctive, remains above the norm for this sort of project.

Camera (Deluxe color, Panavision widescreen), Henry Braham; editors, Peter Honess, Anne V. Coates, Kevin Tent; music, Alexandre Desplat; production designer, Dennis Gassner; supervising art director, Richard Johnson; art directors, Andrew Nicholson, Chris Lowe; set decorator, Anna Pinnock; costume designer, Ruth Myers; sound (DTS/Dolby Digital/SDDS), Tony Dawe; sound designers, Glenn Freemantle, Tom Sayers; supervising sound editor, Freemantle; re-recording mixers, Mike Prestwood Smith, Mark Taylor; senior visual effects supervisor, Michael Fink; visual effects, Rhythm & Hues, Framestore CFC, Cinesite (Europe), Digital Domain, Rainmaker Animation and Visual Effects U.K., Tippett Studio and Tippett Studio Montreal, Matte World Digital, Digital Backlot, Peerless Camera Co.; special effects supervisor, Trevor Wood; makeup and hair designer, Peter King; supervising stunt coordinator, Vic Armstrong; stunt coordinator, Paul Jennings; assistant director, Terry Needham; second unit directors, Armstrong; Mike Fink, Peter Macdonald; second unit camera, Robert McLachlan; casting, Fiona Weir, Lucy Bevan. Reviewed at New Line Cinema screening room, Los Angeles, Nov. 27, 2007. MPAA Rating: PG-13. Running time: 118 MIN.




Edited By MovieWes on 1196519044
"Young men make wars and the virtues of war are the virtues of young men: courage and hope for the future. Then old men make the peace, and the vices of peace are the vices of old men: mistrust and caution." -- Alec Guinness (Lawrence of Arabia)
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