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20/12/2007
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The Golden Compass (2007)
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The Christmas fantasy blockbuster film may soon become film tradition as they are almost guaranteed huge grosses in the cinemas. Unfortunately they appear to be getting worse, I will not pretend to like Chronicles of Narnia with hindsight as I still think it was a Lord of the Rings copy done badly. The problem with Golden Compass is that it does even worse. The premise with all these big Christmas films has been brilliant but The Lord of the Rings is the only one to pull it off properly. I wanted this to be good and I thought it had a lot of promise from its story line of a ruling class called the Magisterium 'looking out' for the people while GOBLA'S kidnap children and take them to the north pole to have their souls removed. The film starts off well enough introducing all the galaxy the characters inhabit along with all the major characters. Indeed it is a perfect film until the moment the main character Lyra gets invited on a trip with Miss Coulter (Nicole Kidman).
The film at this point turns into somewhat of a pantomime as we quickly end up at the north pole having been introduced to a number of characters for relatively pointless reasons solely to move the plot along but effectively dragging the narratives feet. We then get introduced the Lorek the polar bear prince who for some unknown reason has a pointlessly long surname. Later we get a pointless battle of polar bears which is just there so there can be a battle between polar bears, it does not further the story in any way shape or form. I also don't quite understand how no-one noticed at the time that Lyra was kidnapped. I would love to say more but for fear of spoiling the already loose plot I shall not bother. I think that the directing was poor, their was obviously no handle on the story from what was shown on screen, this could be down to studio pressure, poor writing or just the directors cock up but it ruined the film.
It also didn't help that the stand out performer Daniel Craig who was brilliant in his role as Lyra's uncle was only in three relatively short scenes. Nicole Kidman did a pretty darn good job as Miss Coulter and the rest of the acting talent (multiudes of children included) did a good job. It is just a real shame the narrative was so poorly pulled together, this film could have done with the Peter Jackson three hour long spectacular as opposed to a 113min bit of tomfoolery. It tried to do the epic well but I am afraid it failed.
Review by Jonathan Little
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