The Golden Compass (12A)
1:59pm Friday 7th December 2007
The film adaptation of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy was always going to be fraught with difficulty. It was sold as a children's book but was written by a man who wanted to challenge preconceptions of faith and religion. It created a great deal of controversy with the more extreme sections of the Christian faith.
To be quite honest this is always counter productive; a blanket ban is ordered on the reading of books or seeing a film that in any way questions their faith, from The Life of Brian to Harry Potter - oh yes, even he - and you can be guaranteed one sure thing, the furore always results in a bestseller or box office hit, so the writer ends up laughing all the way to the bank.
In a world, not dissimilar from our own, there is a ruling body known as the Magisterium that forbids any ideas that are not their own. Lord Asriel (Daniel Craig) is seeking to break with tradition by exploring a phenomenon known as Dust, which he believes can be channelled through one's Daemon - a physical manifestation of the soul in animal form - and is the key to unlocking a pathway to other worlds beyond his own. On the other side is Mrs Coulter (Nicole Kidman) who is working with the Magisterium to experiment in trying to sever a child from its Daemon in order to protect the next generation from the "harmful" effect of Dust. Caught in the middle is a young girl called Lyra Belacqua (Dakota Blue Richards) an unruly orphan' growing up at the Jordan College in Oxford unaware it is her destiny to change the world forever.
When her friend Roger (Ben Walker) is kidnapped by "The Gobblers" - the nickname for Mrs Coulter's organisation - she teams up with the Gyptians, led by Lord Faa (Jim Carter) and Farder Coram (Tom Courtenay). They travel North to Bolvangar, where the horrible experiments on the children are taking place. More allies arrive in the shape of aeronaut Lee Scoresby (Sam Elliott), Iorek Byrnison - an armoured bear (voiced by Ian Mckellen) and a witch called Serafina Pekkala (Eva Green). With the help of an Alethiometer, a golden compass that tells the truth, Lyra sets about tracking down her friends, as well as helping Byrnison fight to regain a kingship that is rightfully his.
Director Chris Weitz and the producers of this film have made a serious error. They were clearly so worried about offending everyone that the resulting film is nowhere near as good as it could have been. The script is watered down and over explains everything - how many times can you say "golden compass" in one film? Considering the astonishing CGI work on previous fantasy films, the special effects pale in comparison, but they are better than in The Chronicles of Narnia (2005).
There are some good moments, with its astonishingly elite cast the acting is superb - and as a result, wasted. Dakota Blue Richards is perfect as Lyra, Ben Walker makes an endearing Roger and Nicole Kidman was born to play Mrs Coulter. While the film does keep the attention, unlike the characters in Pullman's world, it lacks a soul. 6/10