When it was announced that Phillip Pullman's book, The Golden Compass, was going to be made into a film, fans were worried that director Chris Weitz would omit the more controversial elements -- particularly the underlying theme against the Catholic Church.
Although The Golden Compass' anti-religious elements are blatantly obvious, Pullman's fan base should still be disappointed; the film's rushed pace and disjointed plotline turns the epic story into a horrible sequence of nonsensical and disorganized scenes.
Set in a fantasy world where everyone has their own external animal soul called a "daemon," a young girl named Lyra (Dakota Blue Richards) is the only person who can read a magical, golden compass.
The compass shows the "truth," and Lyra can ask it any question and it will give her the answer. The film never explains why she's the only one who can read the compass, or why the stupid thing is even that important, but everyone seems to want it.
Because the golden compass is so valuable, Lyra shows it to every person she meets, leaves it unattended in hostile environments and looks at it in public places where all passersby can see.
The evil Miss Coulter (Nicole Kidman), whose name may or may not be a reference to right-winged activist Ann Coulter, scours the world to find Lyra and her compass, for reasons also unknown to the audience, all the while working with the Gobblers, a group that kidnaps children.
And through it all, she wears fantastically tailored gold suits that match her gold monkey soul.
Either way, none of it makes much sense, and Lyra doesn't even provoke sympathy from the audience because she's such a little brat.
Even though Lyra is mean to everyone, she manages to accumulate a plethora of people who want to follow her around and save her life.
Her little army consists of an ex-prince Polar Bear, a young orphan boy, a tribe of gypsy people and the Marlboro Man (Sam Elliott). If it had been explained why there was a random cowboy in the movie, maybe the entire experience would have been a little more fulfilling.
The best part of the movie is by far the Ice Bears, which are glorified polar bears who rule their own kingdom and just basically create chaos. The most gruesome scene in the movie shows an amazing CGI-generated fight between two huge polar bears, where one bear slashes the bottom jaw right off the other.
Although there are appealing aspects to the film, they're so few and far between that they really can't stand for the production as a whole. The concept may have been good, but the execution? Not so much. It ends with a foreboding cliffhanger, setting the stage for what will be most likely another irrational, rambling film.
Anyone want to guess who's definitely not going to see that one?
Grade: C
