 | STARRING: Nicole Kidman, Dakota Blue Richards |
Based on Northern Lights, the first novel in a trilogy called His Dark Materials, The Golden Compass seems like the kind of fantasy film that I would really enjoy. With thoughts of the wonderful Chronicles of Narnia in my head, this was my most anticipated December release. The film takes place in a parallel universe in which every person’s spirit is always right by their side as a daemon. The daemon will take the form of a talking animal, but a child’s daemon can change into other animals until the child reaches adulthood. If a person dies, their daemon dies as well.
The film centers around Lyra (Dakota Blue Richards) , a young girl with a dislike of authority. Living at a college, she listens in on a meeting of scholars run by her uncle, Lord Asriel (Daniel Craig). He needs funding to go on a quest to the North Pole to gather a mythical Dust that will allow people to travel to the other parallel universes. She quickly learns that people are not allowed to talk about Dust, but that does not stop her curiosity. Marissa Coulter (Nicole Kidman) takes a liking to Lyra and decides to take her on a trip. Marissa is secretly trying to catch up with Lord Asriel to stop him from finding the Dust. Before embarking on her adventure, Lyra is given a Golden Compass called an alethiometer. If someone can learn how to read it on their own, it will allow you to see the true answer to any question on past or present events. It is supposedly the last one in existence. On her trip Lyra discovers that Marissa is an evil woman. She escapes from her and embarks on her travel to the North Pole on her own. She does get help on her journey from people called the Gyptians, from witches, and even a polar bear warrior. She figures out how to read the Compass, learns all about the Magisterium (the dictators running society), and learns of a plot to kidnap children and separate them from their daemons. It turns out that Lyra is receiving so much help because there is a prophecy about how she will be the one to end an impending war.
There is no real ending to this movie, as it will be continued in the next movie in the series. I would have liked to have had a better ending, and the plot is a bit too complicated for a family fantasy film. I was really disappointed. The movie starts off slow, just plodding from point A to point B, and people around me were falling asleep. It does get better as it goes along, but I was never able to completely escape into this fantasy world. There was just not enough interesting things going on, and the first half of the film bored me. The special effects are great, as each person’s daemon is always in the background and always looked like a real animal. The shape shifting was also smooth.
The standout scene in the film is the fight between two warrior polar bears, which is all special effects. This battle had the crowd cheering. The fight at the end between the people who have kidnapped the kids and a team of Gyptians and witches is also thrilling.
The reaction of the crowd was very mixed. Some people clapped at the end, but I heard others saying that they wasted almost two hours watching a movie that doesn’t even end. I also had a mother tell her son that he will have to read the book if he wants to know how it really ends. The book supposedly had a great ending, which was not used in the movie. It pains me to tell people to wait for the
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