In a parallel world where people each have a personal dæmon, the manifestation of their soul in animal form, young Lyra Belacqua is a precocious orphan growing up at Oxford University. The rambunctious girl enjoys climbing on the roof with Roger the kitchen boy, spitting plum stones on passersby, stealing apples from the market and disrupting tutorials by making animal sounds. But her carefree existence changes when she and her dæmon prevent an assassination attempt against her uncle, the powerful Lord Asriel, then overhear a secret discussion about a mysterious entity known as Dust. She’s then quickly swept up in a dangerous game involving disappearing children, a beautiful woman with a golden monkey dæmon, a trip to the far north, and a set of allies ranging from witches to an armor-clad polar bear.

Based on the Carnegie Medal-winning novel by Phillip Pullman.

This is one of those times that I wish I hadn’t read the book before seeing the movie. I am not one of those naysayers that read the books to then try and rip the movies apart as I understand that they are two different mediums and have to be accepted as such. For the most part the books are better and that is just an accepted fact as far as film adaptations go. There is so much more that you can do in a book that you can’t do on film, we can know the actual thoughts of the characters, there motives and so much more in depth detail about everything happening to the characters and the story itself. Also I believe that my imagination is greater than any CGI crew or special effects department, I can imagine things grander and greater than anything that can be delivered by even the most imaginative directors. That being said I think they did wonders on bringing the film to life, unlike last year’s Eragon which seemed like a very poor man’s version of the book they do manage to be grand and spectacular as far as the effects go. And if that’s what you are looking for an effects movie the film does fit the bill but the story is where the film ended up lacking.

I think the books can be great additions to films, they can fill in all the little gaps a film could never do unless they planned on being six hours long. We saw that both from the Harry Potter films and the Lord of the Rings Trilogy, the books are great and so were the films. They each stood on their own and enhanced the other, the same can’t be said about the Golden Compass. The problem with the Golden Compass is they strayed too far from the books, they ended up changing so much that they almost seem little two different entities. They changed events, the order of things that happened, what and when things were learned and by who and even some of the theme of the books. What all these changes do is destroy the pacing of the book and make the film seem very choppy. They jump from one event to the next without so much as a pause or even a breathe. The book is more than just a mindless action, fantasy tale and it’s sad that they didn’t seem to realize this.

I think the major problem is that they were so afraid to offend that they decided to not tell the story as it is and instead make a few changes to be a little more politically correct. And even after all these changes the film still finds itself be boycotted by the Catholic church. It is a historical fact that the church has banned and opposed anything that goes contrary to what they preach. The imprisoned Galileo for having the audacity to claim the earth revolved around the sun and that we weren’t the center of the universe. The book deals with the oppressions of the church in a completely different parallel universe in a very fantasy setting that is based on many of the historical observations that anyone could make from just studying the history of the church. It is ok to be politically incorrect, it is ok to have a different opinion and believe something out of the norm, and it is ok to be the minority it’s to bad that film makers don’t realize this. The changes take away the punch of the film, it destroys the pacing of the books and makes the film a lesser version of the book.

I am not much of a fan of child actors in films nor films based on children doing fantastical things but I was quite impressed with Dakota Blue Richards as she completely captured the spirit of Lyra from the books. She is completely and totally believable and she is simply fantastic in a film full of big names that fail to give as good of performance as she does. The first being of course Nicole Kidman as she was nothing like what I imagined Mrs. Coulter to be like and she really doesn’t give that great of a performance to make up for it. Another actor that really didn’t seem to fit his character was Sam Elliot even though he gives a really good performance. I think he just didn’t benefit from the fact that Lee Scorseby is one of the characters that they decided to change plus he is not how I imagined him to look. Daniel Craig is barely in the movie, same as the book so its hard to judge him, but he will be big in the sequel and he is a really good actor and was perfect when he was on the screen. The movie is an ok action, fantasy film with great effects but it also had bad pacing and the story just wasn’t as strong as the books.

Grade: C