Review

Review Date: 10-December-07
Spoiler Rating: Low
Juju Judgment: Just OK

The Golden Compass (2007)

How hard it must have been for everyone involved with "The Golden Compass," particularly director and screenwriter Chris Weitz, to bear the burden of adapting a popular series of books into the next "Lord of the Rings." An impossible task, really, so I say with some pity but complete honesty that the movie is a commendable effort. Telling a tale set in a world where part of everybody's soul follows them around in an animal incarnation requires nonstop special effects, on top of which there are other talking animals, mechanical gadgets, fantastic ships, and a culminating battle. The gadgets are nifty and effects very good, most notably a scene in which two armored polar bears fight to the death.

Also very good is the movie's star, newcomer Dakota Blue Richards. As Lyra, a headstrong preteen with a strange destiny, she offers enough beauty, spunk, intelligence, and vulnerability to keep a viewer concerned with her ordeals. (It helps too that her animal extension takes the form of a cat, a weasel, or a mouse, each adorable.) The rest of the cast seems game for a classic, including Nicole Kidman as a cruel agent for the tyrannic organization known as the Magisterium, Daniel Craig as an explorer searching for a passage to other universes, and Sam Elliott as a cowboy who — well, I'm not sure what his deal is, but I am willing to chalk that up to the inevitable loss of detail when a written work is brought to the screen. If I remember Philip Pullman's novel correctly, most of the major parts made the jump.

"The Golden Compass" is, for all that, an excellent example of how technical wizardry cannot conjure up a fine film if the story it serves is not good. I was astonished back when New Line studios selected Pullman's trilogy to be its next fantasy jackpot, in part because of the special effects required and in part because it sucks. This first installment is rather odd and meandering, and it only gets worse from here. Watching "The Golden Compass" transports one's eyeballs to a place of wonder, yet the spirit is not compelled to follow. As Lyra wends her way north to save a kidnapped friend and protect a forbidden compass which only she can read (it points to the truth), nothing feels truly important, epic, or magical. Moderately cool characters flit in and out (e.g., a witch played by Eva Green), Lyra learns more about her mysterious parentage and finds surrogate protectors along the way, she escapes a horrible loss and shows a lot of courage ... and none of it resonates. It is vague and reliant on metaphysical mumbo-jumbo about free will and what binds universes and human souls together. In the end the fatal challenge behind this cinematic endeavor does not stem from external expectations but a fundamental weakness at its core.

Copyright © 2007 The Jujube (M. I. Kim). All rights reserved.