Movie Review: The Golden Compass (December, 2007)

When it was announced that a movie adaptation of Philip Pullman's first book in the His Dark Materials trilogy, Northern Lights had been greenlit the collective sphincters of millions of fans clenched in tentative anticipation of the result. With the director of American Pie and About A Boy, Chris Weitz drafted in to replace Shopgirl director Anand Tucker, fears for how the source material would be treated were amplified. Why on earth is the director of a puerile, gross out comedy being entrusted with such a high profile project? We as fans shared the fear that the worst would inevitably happen. That these fantastic books would suffer the same fate as Narnia and be reduced to kiddie-friendly popcorn fare with none of the drama and gravitas of the Lord Of The Rings movies.

And guess what? It's not nearly as bad as we'd anticipated, but still plays out like a tick-box list of events from the book reeled off in a fashion that is completely devoid of any kind of drama, threat or suspense. When Lyra is gifted with the eponymous compass there's no feeling that the device is of any significant importance, possessing none of the fanfare that came with the one ring. Galling too is the relationship between the characters and their daemons and despite the obligatory exposition-spouting opening voiceover explaining how a daemon is a person's very soul, there's very little indication of how deep this relationship runs. When Lyra is undergoing the intercision process at the Bolvangar facility the tension in the books is so palpable that you're grinding your teeth and digging your nails into your own leg. In the movie the same scene is stripped of all suspense and is in keeping with the rest of the film in that it's over in a matter of seconds. Weitz is in such a rush to race through the book's key moments that there's no time to really get to know the characters, no time to savour the breathtaking scenery and accomplished performances from a strong ensemble cast. The Golden Compass marches on, determined to get you from A to B and out the door as quickly as possible. It's truly a crying shame. Were Golden Compass given an extra hour of running time to flesh out the book's major central narrative components - of which there are many, all intricate, all compelling - the result would have been a far superior movie to the one that ended up making it into local multiplexes. There are some fantastic moments, but they're just too few and far between, bogged down in a mire of clunky exposition spoon fed in such an unenthusiastic way that it's hard to care.

The Golden Compass is a huge disappoinment, not least due to the enormous potential this had to be a worthy successor to Peter Jackson's hallowed trilogy. Pullman's original concepts and ideas are so well-developed in the books that translating them to the screen with the original sense of wonder intact should have been an easy job. That the execution is so ham-fisted is beyond belief. There are high points. The witches and ice bears, - particularly Iorek Byrnison voiced grumpily by a gruff Ian McKellen - are beautifully realised as are the daemons. Even the alternate universe where Lyra's story unfolds is brought to life brilliantly. Golden Compass just isn't the sum of its parts. On paper it should be an unbridled success. In practice it only succeeds in being a perfectly serviceable and mildly entertaining diversion for its two hour running time. It won't stay by your side like a faithful daemon, it'll simply float out of your conciousness like dust. Ironic for a movie where a person's soul is represented in the form of an animal that it has no soul of its own.

***