The Golden Compass

Film Number: 03
Title: The Golden Compass
Director: Chris Weitz
Cast: Nicole Kidman, Daniel Craig, Dakota Richards, Ian McKleen, Eva Green, Freddie Highmore, 
Writer: Adapted from Philip Pullman's book, The Golden Compass by Chris Weitz
Genre: Adventure, Family, Fantasy
Date of Release: 4th January, 2008.

Plot Summary (www.imdb.com): In a parallel world ruled by The Magisterium where people's souls have animal shapes, the orphan Lyra Belaqua is educated in the Jordan College, and her uncle and Professor Lord Asriel is her tutor. Lyra accidentally overhears a conversation about a research of Lord Asriel in the North Artic and the existence of a powerful Dust that unites different worlds. When her best friend Roger is kidnapped by the evil Gobblers, Lyra promises to rescue him. She is invited to go to the North with the influent Mrs. Coulter and the Jordan's Vice-Chancellor secretly gives her a magic golden compass capable of revealing the truth. When Lyra finds that Mrs. Coulter is the leader of the Gobblers, she escapes from her house and the runaway girl begins an amazing adventure in a war to save her friend and other missing children with her allied Gyptians, Witches and the strong Armored Bear Iorek Byrnison.

My thoughts: The plot of the motion picture 'The Golden Compass' is a cheap imitation of the well rounded storyline of the book by Philip Pullman. While the movie offers very good visualisations of the sequence of events in the book and makes a commendable but miniscule amount of fine tuning to some of the open ended scenes in the original story, it fails to capture the very essence of the original. 

The characters in this movie are not given time to mature for it's audience, the original story has been chopped up and thrown around where ever it seems to fit in the movie and not in the order the book insists, and the movie is cropped to such a tight fit that a lot of the story is understood only by those who have previously read the book. 

In good light, some of the shots are excellently taken, although some others could have been improved upon (Example, the bear fight scene is not as vivid as described in the book). But then again, one's imagination is always a step further than all that can be captured on film. 

Overall, the film is a good attempt gone bad. I wonder what they are to do for part two of the book as the film does not end as seen in the book and leaves the audience flabbergasted as to the whole purpose of the film. 

Everything in the movie was haywire and I seriously believe that apart from the absolutely love-able Pan and few great shots in the film, i have outrightly wasted my time. 

My rating: **