The Golden Compass

Last night, I got back from the gym and I went to put on a DVD and found this already in it, the last time I saw this film was at the cinema and I remember a real sense of disappointment, however I decided to give it another go. Growing up His Dark Materials trilogy were probably my favourite books. I read these books when I was about 13-14 and when I began to renounce my own faith, and the critique on religion within these books influenced me, I’m sure. Even though I was an avid fan of Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings, these were the books that remained with me the most. I was therefore very keen that the films would be a success.

At the time of their release however there was a fair amount of controversy from religions, particularly the Catholic Church, with the books being branded evil. Catholicism always does seem to lash out in ignorance and it really does itself no favours, recent events demonstrate this acutely when we consider Joseph Ratzinger’s complete idiocy in invoking Godwin’s law regarding the rise of secularism in the UK. In comparison, if we look at the leader of the Anglican Church, Dr Rowan Williams, we see a reasonable and highly intelligent man, always willing to engage in dialogue about the faults of religion as well as the joy it can bring to many people, and I enjoyed a discussion he had with Phillip Pullman on Start the Week on Radio 4 earlier this year. Perhaps the Catholic Church naturally runs to the defence of any fictional organization that does unspeakable things to children behind closed doors, that is of course their prerogative, but it is a shame that such idiocy is allowed to permeate a creative endeavour such as making a film. As Pullman said “Why don’t we trust filmgoers? Oh it makes me shake my head in sorrow that such nitwits are let loose in this world”. Undoubtedly all of this created a bad buzz around release time and any bad buzz around a family film can have a devastating effect at the box office.

Well what about the film itself you ask? Well the film is about Lyra Belacqua (played by Dakota Blue Richards), growing up in the fictional Jordan College of Oxford, left there by her uncle Lord Asriel (Daniel Craig). One day Asriel comes to visit and after saving his life she wishes to follow him to the north and investigate dust with him. Meanwhile the local children are disappearing, rumoured to be taken by the Gobblers. While at Jordan College, she is visited by the alluring Mrs Coulter (Nicole Kidman) who captures her imagination by promising to take her to the north, Lyra’s best friend Roger however has disappeared, and after a while in Coulters care Lyra makes an alarming discover and decides to run away and find Roger herself, befriending witches, gyptians and armoured bears on her way.

Dakota Blue Richards gives a strong debut performance

Well lets start with the good, because there isn’t much good about this film. Dakota Blue Richards is very good in this film. She is a real find for the producers and is convincing as Lyra in this film, she equips herself very well and I was impressed. Nicole Kidman, for once is also quite good, admittedly as a sort of ice queen character to doesn’t have to do much beyond remaining quite cold and wooden, but she performs a good job, nothing you can fault her with that’s for sure, and Daniel Craig helps add some weight to the film as do established actors such as Kathy Bates and Ian McKellen voicing various creatures throughout the film. A particular highlight for me was Derek Jacobi playing the role of the Magesterium’s emissary with a brilliant slimy quality, reminiscent of Brad Douriff as Wormtail in Lord of the Rings. What else can we say? The sets looked quite nice? They looked like they had a fair amount of money thrown at them anyway, but I have literally nothing else good to say about this film.

It was hugely disappointing. As far as specifics were concerned there was no cohesion to the narrative, it was just a bunch of wonderful things happening to this little girl during her magical adventure, there was no real threat, nor was there any sense of real explanation. Why can Coulter take her away? She just can, why do the gyptians follow her? They just made it their business, why does Scoresby help her? Guess he just felt like it. It’s just a load of stuff that happens, and its not tied together efficiently enough by the director, we needed a bit more of the basil exposition rather than just seeing it speed along. The issue of the Witches shows this perfectly, in a rather random moment the Witch Queen just turns up and takes an interest in our main protagonist, to the extent that her and her kin risk their lives towards the end of the film, why? Oh I guess we won’t bother explaining that, we just get some ham-fisted explanation about a prophecy at the end instead. The dialogue was poor throughout too, it felt forced and not worked through, this is not how people talk, you can write it but you can’t say it like that, and this was most keenly felt during the clumsy, cumbersome voiceover at the start of the film.

Poor special effects dog this film throughout 

The CGI was also a real problem. This film was post Lord of the Rings, but they made a nazgul seem fairly realistic, and in this film they couldn’t even do dogs and cats correctly, never mind the irritating Freddy Highmore playing Pantalaimon. The bad CGI was clearly shown up in the fight between the two bears. These giant bears that probably weight a few tonnes between them were fighting to the death, and there was just no weight at all to the fight. Their environment was completely unaffected by giant bears covered in armour being thrown across it and it just felt completely anticlimactic. In fact the entire film was anticlimactic, ending at least half an hour too early and missing the ending of the book, which really raised the stakes and increased the readers emotional investment in the story through a certain sad event. By missing this out it just left fans of the book feeling empty, and giving viewers little reason to get excited about the sequels.

Despite this if the core of the books had been there it could still have been a good film. However the story was in it, but not the heart. The very essence of the books was torn out turning it into just another standard adventure film with nothing behind the eyes, as if its very soul was separated from it. Despite all the talk about dust in the film there is no real revelation regarding it, its just another mystery with no indication at all about its importance, its links with original sin are alluded to with the most subtle of touches, most people would completely miss them, and the role of the Magesterium as a church is completely missing from the film. Perhaps this was done to increase its appeal and appease the religious, but in the end the books without the message are nothing special, and looking at quotes such as saying post production was a “terrible experience”, from the director Chris Weitz it looks like New Line were responsible for this.

Dust is there, but not as you know it

New Line’s handling of this film has been abysmal, and considering that they sold the international rights, which brought in much more than the US box office, it seems their idiocy infected every element of this film. After handling Lord of the Rings so well I had hope for them, but it seems they have made a real pigs ear of His Dark Materials and with the possibility of the Subtle Knife looking more and more remote, the blame surely lies with them. The quote “by being faithful with the book I was working at odds with the studio”, sums it all up. Shame on you, New Line.

Considering what this film could have been, and what it ended up being it is highly disappointing, I give it a 4 out of 10, must try harder.