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The Golden Compass (2007)

Director: Chris Weitz

Time Out rating

Average user rating

152 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 2007-11-28 15:12:17

Time Out London

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User reviews of this film

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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Amber said...

Posted on Jan 24 2008 14:16 What a horrible disappointment. I'm an avid reader of Pullman's suberb and complex trilogy and was excited to hear someone had finally reconstructed the books on film, but when I went to see it, I was disgusted. So many matters of what deepens the plot and political heartstrings of the book are skipped atrociously or hastily explained as if talking to a toddler. The whole style of the book is so the reader slowly finds and learns of the fantasy world in which they are shown, not given a patronising TOUR GUIDE. The chapters are mixed up dilberately, and the ending is sliced off unremarkably just when things start to get a tiny bit exci...

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mia said...

Posted on Jan 22 2008 15:23 the film was superb. i had not read the books before the film and i understood it. i have now read all 3 books and i cant wait for the 2nd film.
see the film for the film, dont judge it by the books otherwise u will be disappointed. as there is no way a book that long can be fitted into a film. the theatre production was 6hours long.
worth seeing

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lisa said...

Posted on Jan 20 2008 16:17 i went 2 c this film with my partner an my son and we really enjoyed it. im looking forward 2 the sequel i just hope it is a good a this 1 was.

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tracey said...

Posted on Jan 18 2008 21:14 I thought this film excellent in everyway. The pace, dramatics, acting, especially the children, fabulous.
Whoever thought that the acting of these roles were terrible quite frankly doesn't know what he is talking about.

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Rich said...

Posted on Jan 18 2008 08:01 Excellent fim adaptation of even more excellent 1st part of trilogy that improves dramatically in books 2 & noteably 3.
Weiss did well to put across a complex story in under 2 hours. Obviously elements had to be omitted and the ending occuring earlier than in the first book (obviously this paves the way for a good opening for The Subtle Knife if it materialises).
The sequels will not disappoint if they happen, as the story prgresses to a level beyond this "introductory" installment.

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Nick said...

Posted on Jan 15 2008 10:17 Honestly the worst film I have ever sat through. Absolute balls. I'd rather poke my self in the eye than go through something of such poor cinematic quality again - just terrible!!! Awfull

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wendy said...

Posted on Jan 12 2008 12:49 Excellent family film!! Looking forward to the follow up.

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Carol said...

Posted on Jan 11 2008 12:04 May I just say that it is not just the comments that I find irritating. It is the total lack of proper English and spelling that annoys me. Also is everyone writing in text mode these days ? God only knows how the next generation are supposed to keep our country going if most of them cannot read, spell or write correctly.
The Golden Compass - Brilliant Family Fun !!

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pixie said...

Posted on Jan 11 2008 02:45 dont go and see the film, read the book instead, considering the main charatcer has had no acting experience and was picked at random off the streets by the director she wasnt bad but thats not really a great excuse. its missing all the magic that is conjured up in the book, it was indeed hollw and had little effect on me, it was a real shame, they could have done so much with it

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pattom cambridhe said...

Posted on Jan 09 2008 13:27 What a peice of hollow waste, the acting in this film had me trying to drowned myself in my coke. i know we don't got to see these movies for the acting, but that is no excuse, the performances from the main girl and her little boyfriend were so bad it had me believing i have a future in acting.

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