The Golden Compass Review

About
Dakota Blue Richards, Nicole Kidman, Daniel Craig
In a parallel universe, young Lyra Belacqua journeys to the far North to save her best friend and other kidnapped children from terrible experiments by a mysterious organization.

The Good?
I was really impressed with how well they portrayed the book on screen. From the trailers I really didn't know what to expect, and considering they manage to screw up many of my favourite books by making them into a film (ie Eragon), I didn't have the highest of hopes.

Dakota Blue Richards was absolutely perfect for Lyra, she outshone the likes of Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig and definitely was a huge part of making the film believable.

The daemon's were really well done too, they didn't seem like cheesy talking animals (like in Garfield), they really felt like a part of each person's soul. Pan was really well done, with his split second changes in shape.

The Bad?
There were some minor (and one major - see The Ugly) differences between the film and the book, and while some of the changes didn't make sense and caused a few holes in the plot, I can understand them having to change things to make it shorter, as even the first book of the series was pretty long.

I'm not going to speak much on the controversy surrounding this film, I'm not a Christian myself and in all honesty it's up to you to decide whether or not you/your family are mature enough to see a film which portrays ideas that you are against but then take that and use it as an opportunity to discuss the ideas and why you don't agree with them.

The Ugly?
After being so impressed at the majority of the film, the ending really pissed me off. Despite not having read the book in a few years, the ending still was vivid in my mind. So I was a little bit peeved when it ended where it did (and so cheesily too!).

After looking on the internet, apparently they did actually film the final scenes, just decided not to use them in the end. It really felt like they were taking the easy way out, to please the viewers that hadn't read the books by giving them a 'happy' ending, but in the process they pissed off all the viewers who had read the books.

I think the book works so much better with the cliffhanger, it's such an emotional scene that it just leaves you dying to know what happens next.

Overall
A fantastic film overall, even if they did completely screw up the ending.

Links
| Official | IMDB | Wikipedia | Trailer |




PS: I couldn't resist!