THE GOLDEN COMPASS

Reviewed for CompuServe by Harvey S. Karten
New Line Cinema
Grade: B
Directed by: Chris Weitz
Written By: Chris Weitz, from Philip Pullman's novel "The Golden Compass"
Cast: Nicole Kidman, Dakota Blue Richards, Eva Green, Daniel Craig, Sam Elliott, Ben Walker, Christopher Lee, Tom Courtenay, Derek Jacobi, voices of Ian McKellen, Ian McShane, Freddie Highmore, Kathy Bates, Kristin Scott Thomas
Screened at: AMC Empire, NYC, 11/27/07
Opens: December 7, 2007

The first lesson we learned in Earth Science class was that a compass always points north. While this truth may have one exception—the title golden compass of Chris Weitz’s movie said to be able to answer any question its holder asks provided that the master knows how to ask—the producers of this high-budget fantasy want north to be the direction it will always point. South is a no-no. In other words: will the picture earn back the phenomenal $150 million it cost to make and then some? (That’s quite a sum when compared to the $5,000 that Michael Angarano’s character, Cameron Kincaid, spends in Michael Schroeder’s film “Man in the Chair” to make a movie that wins him a full scholarship to film school.)

The 1995 novel “Northern Lights” by the British writer Philip Pullman, the first in the “His Dark Materials” trilogy, was chosen in 2007 by judges of the Carnegie Medal as one of the ten most important children’s novels of the past seventy years. The book was retitled by the North American publishers as “The Golden Compass” after the aforementioned alethiometer.

The plot looks more complex on the page than on the screen, a testament to the poverty of Cliff Notes, but the bare outline, leaving out salient details, risks revealing spoilers, which means skip this paragraph if you want to be wholly surprised by the film. Lyra Belacqua, an orphaned twelve-year-old at Jordan College, sneaks into a room though warned against this by her daemon, Pantalaimon, a daemon being an form-shifting, articulate animal representing her character’s soul, which changes shape according to Lyra’s mood. She saves the life of her uncle, Lord Asriel, who is demonstrating a picture of “Dust,” which enters into the bodies of characters in the north. When her friend Roger is kidnapped, Lyra seeks to rescue him, which she gets a chance to do when a Mrs. Coulter escorts her from the college, but not before she is given the golden compass, an alethiometer, which reveals the answer to any question. Lyra discovers that an organization, “Gobblers,” is kidnapping children: the reason is revealed toward the conclusion, a motivation which has been responsible for the novel’s being condemned by some church officials but which is, on the other hand, praised by other religious bodies as being a book not against religion (though it was written by an agnostic) but against fanaticism.

End of spoilers.

As the young ‘un, Dakota Blue Richards is the center of attention as Lyra Bleacqua, easily deserving first billing ahead of Nicole Kidman’s Marisa Coulter, the latter serving merely as Lyra’s villainous escort to the north. Ms. Richards, born in London in 1994 and a fan of Philip Pullman’s books since she was nine and in the audience of the National theatre production of the nvoelist’s “His Dark Materials,” could garner some guild awards nominations this year for a startling debut. Lyra, an enthusiastic child wholly focused on rescuing her best friend Roger, kidnapped by Gobblers, has no problem cutting classes as her school, latching on to Mrs. Coulter as an escort to the north, easily befriending and saving the soul of a bear (voice of Ian McKellen) who had been enslaved by a skuzzy bunch of workers, taken out of his natural environs and paid not in cash but in whiskey. The bear, knowing and reveling in nothing but the noble art of war, is given a suit of armor, “signs” a contract with Lyra until death do they part to defend her, and in one of the film’s most exciting scenes is put to the test in a battle with the king of the bears.

In another of the great action scenes—the violence of the movie responsible for the PG-13 rating as opposed to the more expected PG—a battle royal takes place between another unlike alliance of Lyra with the pirate-like, rough-trade bunch of gyptians and characters that seem to have come out of Roland Emmmerich’s movie 10,000 B.C.
Nicole Kidman, whose features change almost in every movie almost as much as the daemons in “The Golden Compass,” takes on her classic look this time albeit with a pasty face slapped on her by the make-up department. Though villainous almost through-and-though, an agent of the folks who want nothing more from their subjects than total obedience (as declared by Derek Jacobi’s character, the Magisterial Emissary), she has a special relationship with Lyra that tempers her authoritarian nature and provides shadings of gray to her dimensions.

With colorful character actor Sam Elliott providing his typical Mark-Twain aura as hunter Lee Scoresby, Daniel Craig as the noble Lord Asriel with a big cat by his side representing his soul, and the ubiquitous Freddie Highmore appearing this time as merely the voice of Dakota Blue Richards’s protean daemon, “The Golden Compass” may not soar as did the groundbreaking “Lord of the Rings” series, but at a merciful one hundred fourteen minutes provides enough fantasy and interest not to outlast its welcome.

Rated PG-13. 114 minutes © 2007 by Harvey Karten Member: NY Film Critics Online