The Golden Compass -- the first movie to be made from Philip Pullman's best-selling His Dark Materials trilogy -- does have one obvious thing in common with the Harry Potter series.
Like the first Potter film, and maybe more so, The Golden Compass seems rushed. There is a vast universe -- actually many universes -- to introduce us to, the movie seems to say, so let's get on with it.
There's a world sort of like ours, except that every human has an animal companion called a "daemon" that is actually a vessel for the person's soul (children's daemons can shift species). There's a Big Brother type religion/government called the Magisterium that pokes its nose into every facet of people's lives and decides what is true about the world and what is "blasphemy."
There's a scientist adventurer who has discovered the unthinkable -- that there are other worlds, all connected by some transcendent material called "dust." There's a little girl, putatively the scientist's niece, who seems fated to bring those worlds together. There are witches, and an armoured race of warrior polar bears, and ... well, you get the picture. No wonder this movie comes to a halt three chapters earlier than the book.
This kind of expositional haste may play havoc with character development (there's not a single actor in the movie who could be happy with his or her screen-time, with the exception of its child star Dakota Blue Richards).
On the other hand, there'll be plenty of time for metaphysics and deep thoughts later. The good news for parents is that this haste makes a complicated story into short-attention-span theatre, perfect for children, with terrifically seamless effects and a bear fight I guarantee they'll always remember.
As The Golden Compass opens, we meet Lyra Belacqua (Richards), an orphan ward of Oxford College in this fictional London, an adventurous child given to unauthorized traipses about the poorer neighbourhoods with her daemon (voiced by Freddie Highmore) and equally unapproved friends Roger (Ben Walker) and Billy (Charlie Rowe), the latter of whom belongs to a gypsy-like clan called the, um, Gyptians.
Zipping in and out of the halls of officialdom, Lyra soon discovers that her uncle/father-figure is marked for death for his studies. And a new guardian enters her life in the form of a Magisterium agent named Marisa Coulter (Nicole Kidman), who impresses Lyra with her poise, but soon frightens her with her sinister side. It should be said that Kidman's neurotically malicious turn is the one memorable performance in the movie not aided by computer FX.
When both Roger and Billy become statistics in an unexplained rash of poor children gone missing, The Golden Compass finds its feet with its quest. Both the "dust" and the answer to the mystery of the children lies North, and there Lyra heads with the titular object, a magic (and forbidden) truth-seeking device called an Alethiometer, backed by witches, Gyptians and a strangely out-of-place Texan balloonist (Sam Elliott).
This is still dark stuff, and there are fearful moments involving children in peril that may be inappropriate for younger or sensitive kids. Others will appreciate the action -- including a full-out climactic battle involving Gyptians and witches and bears (oh my).
With two-plus books of plot left to go, the task of getting this entire trilogy down still seems daunting. But at least we'll have less need for a scorecard next time out.
(This film is rated PG)
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