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The Golden Compass (2007)

Director: Chris Weitz

Time Out rating

Average user rating

95 reviews

Movie review

From Time Out London

Bland, bloodless and bereft of magic, New Line’s corporate sanitisation of Philip Pullman’s exciting, provocative fantasy novel, ‘The Northern Lights’, strips the book of its humanity and soul.

Just as the church-like Magisterium and the glacially glamorous Mrs Coulter (Nicole Kidman) are rumoured to be severing pre-pubescent children from their animal daemons (an external ‘familiar’ representing their inner soul), so this clinical dissection of Pullman’s vividly imagined parallel world cuts away the warm flesh and leaves only the bare bones.

The skeleton of the plot remains, albeit in a compacted, confusing form.

While zeppelins float above an alternate Oxford’s dreaming spires, wilful 12-year-old orphan Lyra Belacqua (Dakota Blue Richards) swears to rescue her kitchen-boy friend Roger from his child-cutter abductors. Lyra’s epic quest takes her to the frozen wastes of the Arctic Circle. Here, with the help of Lord Faa’s good-hearted Gyptians, ferocious ice bear Iorek Byrnison (badly voiced by a miscast Ian McKellen), cowboy aeronaut Lee Scoresby (Sam Elliott), witch queen Serafina Pekkala (Eva Green) and a precious truth-telling instrument called an alethiometer, she confronts her enemies: the corrupt king of the ice bears, Ragnar Sturlusson (Ian McShane), the cruel Mrs Coulter (Kidman typecast as an ice queen) and hordes of Tartar henchmen.

What’s missing is any sense of Lyra’s exhilarating but perplexing journey from childhood innocence to incipient adulthood. In the book, we see everything from Lyra’s point-of-view, sharing her sense of wonder, her doubts and fears, her love for her shape-shifting daemon Pantalaimon. But like the Northern Lights themselves, glimpsed only briefly as a projected image, all this is missing. As with the scary Mrs Coulter, the film should possess, 'a scent of grown-upness, something disturbing and enticing at the same time.'

Instead, it’s a synthetic, flavourless product that lacks the subversive tang of Pullman’s source novel.

Author: Nigel Floyd

Time Out London

User reviews of this film

gobbler said...

Posted on Jun 02 2008 17:32 I thought the film was a great fantasy film and it has done well all around the world. There was a real chemistry between Lyra and Roger. I have seen that Roger on TV before he is agreat little actor. I am looking forward to the next two films.

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Jesse said...

Posted on May 04 2008 06:24 I found that this was a really good movie, yes some parts where mxed up but hey at least they got them in there, as for the cast I think they did a really good job and I am really looking forward to the Subtle Knife movie

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maz said...

Posted on Apr 22 2008 09:45 worst film i have ever. even worse than Water World.

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Jamster said...

Posted on Apr 12 2008 10:35 What a film that was. i think you need to read the first part of the book to make it amazing but it was really good anyway. the end was absoloutly terrible but the film made up for that in the main. the firght between the bears was amazing and Pullmans idea of 'is that all you've got' was amazingly brillient. i can't wait until the next film it will be even better.

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Desmond said...

Posted on Mar 16 2008 05:08 Truly the worst movie I have ever seen. Cliche after cliche, Lyra's accent is all over the place, the CGI is amateur at best but really it's the story that is utterly lacking. I haven't read the book but if I was the author I'd either give up writing now or distance myself from this film as much as is humanly possible. Only two truths can exist here: either the story is rubbish beyond comprehension or the film is a terrible adapation.

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Siobhan said...

Posted on Mar 08 2008 10:50 Oh, and I forgot to say Nicole Kidman was brilliant, and with the exception of Daniel Craig, the only good actor in this movie, including Lyra. And for those of you who asked (below) whos idea was it to cast her, it was in fact Philip Pullman, who wrote a letter to her begging to accept the part - even though inicially she didn't want to.

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Siobhan said...

Posted on Mar 08 2008 10:46 Amazing film, I agree with the reviewer that it admittedly was nowhere near as good as the book, but with films - what do you expect? Of course it wasn't going to be 100% faithful to the book, I've learnt not to expect much from book-adapted movies, (with the exception of The Devil Wears Prada) However it would have been even better if they hadn't cut the last four chapters of the book and left us with a terrible meant-to-be-a-cliffhanger-but-fails-miserably ending that left us staring at the credits thinking - Is that it?!

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Candi said...

Posted on Feb 22 2008 18:05 After months of waiting to see this film on reading the books I have got to say I am so disappointed! The film didn't seem to flow from scene to scene as the book did,everything was in the wrong place. Lyra herself, although she had the right look, missed the passion and bold and powerful character reflected in the book. Just like Daniel bloody Radcliff in Harry Potter! What happened at the end too? Why didn't Lord Asriel build a bridge in to the other world and leave a cliff hanger, what was that ending all about!? Also, there was no magic to it, it was just boring. This film could have been something amazing, spellbinding, tragic, beautiful and mesmerizing and a truly brilliant tale that would leave a person desperate to see the next film. Why is it that the lord of the rings was so amazing and this turned out to be another Harry Potter? Leaving out all the blood & gore because of the children. Bad job!!!!

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critique said...

Posted on Feb 12 2008 17:12 My perspective is of one who has not read the book and I found it to be a moderately diverting fantasy entertainment.

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Becki said...

Posted on Feb 10 2008 20:49 The Golden Compass is the best moviein the universe but if Nicole Kidman wasnt in it i would hate it

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olek said...

Posted on Jan 30 2008 17:52 total rubbish, all messed up - polar bears, witches, stray Americans, Russian soldiers in fur hats, children walking in the frozen Arctic lands. Whatever you want! You need to get drunk before the film (like i did), then you will be able to sit through it, and maybe even laugh wholeheartedly.

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Dan said...

Posted on Jan 28 2008 17:23 Watered down and pointless film adaptation of an amazingly deep and brilliant book. I cannot understand how they managed to make Lord Of The Rings into good films but not Northern Lights. Lord Of The Rings was far more challenging to adapt onto the big screen. Northern Lights has it all - a fantastic plot that with many twists and turns along with drama, triumph and despair and everything in between. It should have been made into an fantastic film and instead it's just absolute rubbish. I've never been so dissapointed with a film in all my life. If they bother making the next two, I for one won't be bothering to go and see them. Don't watch this film - read the book.

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Maya said...

Posted on Jan 27 2008 21:49 Dreadful, insipid and dull

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mhairi said...

Posted on Jan 26 2008 16:19 THEY DISTROYED THE BOOK!!!!!!!!!!!

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Amber said...

Posted on Jan 24 2008 14:25 Also, Dakota Blue Richards does bravely but not satisfactory enough. Daniel Craig as Arisel barely appears as a main character, and he is unbelievably softened as a character. Sam Elliot does well compared to most of the cast and Kidman gets double thumbs up. Ian Mckellen should have been a little more ferocious and calculating. Its clear that every character has been shrunken and simplified. You might as well replace each character with a stuffed toy representation that squeaks when you press their stomachs ( Apart from Kidman and Elliot). The daemons however are hardly vitalised in the film, and appear to be nothing but fluffy sidekicks. Hardly a good way to present one's soul and something that is connected to your own heartstrings. You might as well package the movie in fluffy pink ribbons and be done with it. Awful directing.

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