Unlike screen adaptations of the "Harry Potter" books, or the Disneyfication of "The Chronicles of Narnia" - movies that anyone can enjoy without giving them a second thought - "The Golden Compass" introduces a world of myth and mystery that requires patience and a certain mental aptitude to figure out.
It's a place fraught with parallel worlds and Animal Planet fashion accessories. Where else are you going to find Sam Elliott - in full cowboy hat and twang - speaking to an up-armored white bear who sounds like (and is) Ian McKellen?
If you are Lyra Belacqua (Dakota Blue Richards), the 12-year-old orphan who is the story's heroine - not to mention the movie's heart and soul - how you find all these remarkable things, and navigate the movie's tricky terrain is with an Alethiometer. That's the official name for the golden compass that guides Lyra through Philip Pullman's "His Dark Materials" trilogy, first published in England in 1995, two years before J.K. Rowling's "Potter" series began.
An Alethiometer is the global-positioning equivalent of a watch that tells you it's two freckles past a hair Eastern elbow time. Not terribly useful. Unless, of course, you are able to discern from a compass heading that appears to include a picture of a bear and a picture of a lightning bolt that you should set out immediately for the Arctic Circle.
This is the sort of thing that Lyra does with comparative ease, closing her eyes and becoming engulfed in a cloud of golden dust. Deciphering the compass's clues remains infernally difficult for the rest of us, which is why Lyra is soon being spoken of as some sort of "chosen one." Among other story elements, that term has set off a backlash against the film by church groups who believe Pullman's books to be anti-religion.
Lyra is the whip-smart-but-rebellious ward of Lord Asriel (Daniel Craig), who is apparently some sort of Indiana Jones of a dimension visible only to him. He wants Jordan College to fund his exploration of these parallel worlds, and before decamping for parts unknown to await the movie's inevitable sequel, Asriel introduces us to the Kingdom of the Ice Bears. He even shows some faculty geezers a picture of dust coming from the sky. Obviously, the grant application process works a little differently in England.
The school's master is the one who gives the world's last Alethiometer to Lyra, and he does so with apparent confidence that she will figure out how to use it. "It tells the truth," he says, handing the contraption over to her easy as you please, as if it were made of Fruit Roll-ups instead of solid gold. "This lets you glimpse things as they are."
He's pretty sure she'll need some kind of lie detector, and for good reason. He has just agreed to allow Mrs. Coulter (Nicole Kidman), the gold-plated moll of the Magisterium - a mysterious, power-hungry order that seems to have a grudge against all children - to take Lyra with her to Norway. Shimmering across a long dining hall in gold lamé and platinum blond hair, Kidman looks as if she just stepped out of a remake of "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes," a wicked virago vision of Marilyn Monroe with plumped lips.
The adaptation of Pullman's book is by Chris Weitz ("About a Boy"), who is parsimonious about revealing the secrets of the Magisterium. When Lyra asks Mrs. Coulter what the Magisterium is, as the two of them soar across London in a red and gold zeppelin, Mrs. C replies that the evil order tells people what to do, but "in a kindly way."
It doesn't take a golden compass to know that's a whopper, but the movie quickly removes all doubt about the group's villainy by installing inter-galactic bad guy Christopher Lee as its First High Councilor. The only conceivable casting clue less subtle than that would be if they'd hired Darth Vader for the part.
In its own way, "The Golden Compass" is a sequel of sorts, coming from the same studio that produced "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy. Some of the action set pieces at the Arctic Circle may remind you of the "Rings" movies, and while Weitz lacks Peter Jackson's obvious operatic flair for fantasy, the big action scenes work on their own terms.
Kidman probably isn't the ideal choice for Mrs. Coulter; she seems to have trouble conveying some of the character's ambiguity. Craig is a marquee name with very little to do, and as a result, many of the best performances are vocal: McKellen brings the great bear Iorek roaring to life, and Freddie Highmore is sweet as Lyra's daemon, one of the animal companions every human has.
The movie's strongest selling point is Lyra herself, not just a welcome change from all the boy seekers of knowledge and truth in the "Harry Potter" and "Rings" pictures. She gets plenty of help from Elliott's cowboy aviator Lee Scoresby, the friendly witch Serafina (Eva Green) and an unforgettable bear.
Lyra has more pre-pubescent girl power than any screen heroine since "Whale Rider," and there is enough fire in Dakota Blue Richards' first film performance to make you eager for the next installment in the series
It's a place fraught with parallel worlds and Animal Planet fashion accessories. Where else are you going to find Sam Elliott - in full cowboy hat and twang - speaking to an up-armored white bear who sounds like (and is) Ian McKellen?
If you are Lyra Belacqua (Dakota Blue Richards), the 12-year-old orphan who is the story's heroine - not to mention the movie's heart and soul - how you find all these remarkable things, and navigate the movie's tricky terrain is with an Alethiometer. That's the official name for the golden compass that guides Lyra through Philip Pullman's "His Dark Materials" trilogy, first published in England in 1995, two years before J.K. Rowling's "Potter" series began.
An Alethiometer is the global-positioning equivalent of a watch that tells you it's two freckles past a hair Eastern elbow time. Not terribly useful. Unless, of course, you are able to discern from a compass heading that appears to include a picture of a bear and a picture of a lightning bolt that you should set out immediately for the Arctic Circle.
This is the sort of thing that Lyra does with comparative ease, closing her eyes and becoming engulfed in a cloud of golden dust. Deciphering the compass's clues remains infernally difficult for the rest of us, which is why Lyra is soon being spoken of as some sort of "chosen one." Among other story elements, that term has set off a backlash against the film by church groups who believe Pullman's books to be anti-religion.
Lyra is the whip-smart-but-rebellious ward of Lord Asriel (Daniel Craig), who is apparently some sort of Indiana Jones of a dimension visible only to him. He wants Jordan College to fund his exploration of these parallel worlds, and before decamping for parts unknown to await the movie's inevitable sequel, Asriel introduces us to the Kingdom of the Ice Bears. He even shows some faculty geezers a picture of dust coming from the sky. Obviously, the grant application process works a little differently in England.
The school's master is the one who gives the world's last Alethiometer to Lyra, and he does so with apparent confidence that she will figure out how to use it. "It tells the truth," he says, handing the contraption over to her easy as you please, as if it were made of Fruit Roll-ups instead of solid gold. "This lets you glimpse things as they are."
He's pretty sure she'll need some kind of lie detector, and for good reason. He has just agreed to allow Mrs. Coulter (Nicole Kidman), the gold-plated moll of the Magisterium - a mysterious, power-hungry order that seems to have a grudge against all children - to take Lyra with her to Norway. Shimmering across a long dining hall in gold lamé and platinum blond hair, Kidman looks as if she just stepped out of a remake of "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes," a wicked virago vision of Marilyn Monroe with plumped lips.
The adaptation of Pullman's book is by Chris Weitz ("About a Boy"), who is parsimonious about revealing the secrets of the Magisterium. When Lyra asks Mrs. Coulter what the Magisterium is, as the two of them soar across London in a red and gold zeppelin, Mrs. C replies that the evil order tells people what to do, but "in a kindly way."
It doesn't take a golden compass to know that's a whopper, but the movie quickly removes all doubt about the group's villainy by installing inter-galactic bad guy Christopher Lee as its First High Councilor. The only conceivable casting clue less subtle than that would be if they'd hired Darth Vader for the part.
In its own way, "The Golden Compass" is a sequel of sorts, coming from the same studio that produced "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy. Some of the action set pieces at the Arctic Circle may remind you of the "Rings" movies, and while Weitz lacks Peter Jackson's obvious operatic flair for fantasy, the big action scenes work on their own terms.
Kidman probably isn't the ideal choice for Mrs. Coulter; she seems to have trouble conveying some of the character's ambiguity. Craig is a marquee name with very little to do, and as a result, many of the best performances are vocal: McKellen brings the great bear Iorek roaring to life, and Freddie Highmore is sweet as Lyra's daemon, one of the animal companions every human has.
The movie's strongest selling point is Lyra herself, not just a welcome change from all the boy seekers of knowledge and truth in the "Harry Potter" and "Rings" pictures. She gets plenty of help from Elliott's cowboy aviator Lee Scoresby, the friendly witch Serafina (Eva Green) and an unforgettable bear.
Lyra has more pre-pubescent girl power than any screen heroine since "Whale Rider," and there is enough fire in Dakota Blue Richards' first film performance to make you eager for the next installment in the series
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