The Golden Compass

Released amid a haze of dumb-assed criticism from religious groups and lame fear-mongering, 2007’s The Golden Compass turned out to have less bite and drama than ever thought possible. Indeed, the Chris Weitz film adaptation of the Phillip Pullman book is convoluted, needlessly multifarious, visually featureless, and less than persuasive. There are a few bright spots to be sure, but the overall process is tiring and much too average to be notable.

The groundwork for The Golden Compass was laid with the success of the Lord of the Rings series of films. In February of 2002, New Line Cinema entered into the process of turning Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy into a movie series. Script troubles plagued production from the beginning and the final product would wind up being the most expensive New Line production ever and would lead to restructuring within the company.

The Golden Compass concerns an alternate universe in which people live with their souls on the outside of their bodies in animal form. These souls are called dæmons in the Pullman universe and are representative of the person’s qualities. As we drop in on this alternate universe, we learn that Europe is controlled by the Magisterium, an organization with Church-like structure and statutes. It is interesting to note that the term “magisterium” refers to the teaching authority of the Catholic Church. Pullman’s books carry central themes of questioning authority and notions of faith, which in turn brought out a great deal of controversy.

In Oxford, we meet a young girl named Lyra (Dakota Blue Richards). She is our heroine and her rambunctious spirit leads her to many adventurous situations. Lyra’s uncle, Lord Asriel (Daniel Craig), visits her at the college and reveals evidence of particles of “Dust.” Asriel does this much to the chagrin of the Magisterium and a plot to kill him is overthrown by Lyra and her dæmon. As we learn, the Magisterium is very much interested in “Dust” after all and wants to control the spread of information.

Mrs. Coulter (Nicole Kidman) arrives at the college and takes Lyra off on what sounds like a marvellous adventure at first. Eventually, however, Coulter’s true nature is revealed and Lyra must fight for what’s right, resist authority, convert to atheism, start sacrificing babies, and locate her best friend. She is given an alethiometer to help guide her to the truth and ends up meeting a fighting bear with armour and Sam Elliot.

The film’s 113-minute runtime simply isn’t enough to cover all of this ground, for starters. Weitz crams an awful lot into the allotted time, for certain, and key moments aren’t given enough time to build or come to natural fruition. Instead, the project feels hurried and the source material loses much of its punch. In trying to make The Golden Compass appeal to a broader, principally American/Christian audience, Weitz was forced to pull out a lot of the red meat from Pullman’s saga.

As an effects driven fantasy, there just simply isn’t enough here. The animals or dæmons often look fake or stiff, taking away a sense of wonder and replacing it with cheesy designs. The armoured polar bears or panserbjørne also look silly. The showdown between two bears that formulates an action centrepiece lacks toughness and grit, instead coming across as a Coca-Cola Bears Gone Wild clip. The fact that the majority of the sequences take place on a dowdy grey-white-black backdrop doesn’t help the film gain any vividness or colour.

Tortuous and filled with mediocre effects, The Golden Compass is a disappointment. The meat of Pullman’s story is left on the sidelines and New Line’s attempts at making a “big” fantasy epic for families feels ineffective in comparison to the LOTR, Harry Potter, and Narnia flicks. While Richards does make for a spunky lead as Lyra and Kidman’s Coulter is suitably chilly, there is nothing noteworthy about any of the characters or the actors playing them. In the end, The Golden Compass doesn’t sit well and, unhappily, lacks direction.

Trailer: