Tarnished Compass

The Golden Compass

DISCLAIMER We usually avoid seeing movies that are based on books we have read (more often on books we have read and enjoyed). The movies try to strike a compromise between those who have read and loved and those who are illiterate and only watch movies. As we know compromise is code for EVERYBODY LOSES. Nothing is different with The Golden Compass.

PREMISE It is difficult to describe what the movie was about knowing what the movie should have been about but I will give it a try. Lyra is a girl who lives in a world where people's souls exist in animal form outside their body, (sounds pretty cool right?) but the "Magisterium" (you can give it a new name but that doesn't mean we aren't going to understand it as "church") wants to silence everybody who is not them. Lyra's -SPOILER ALERT!- mother Mrs. Coulter works for a section of the church who kidnaps little children and performs experiments on them, for their own good, of course. And there are some witches and some bears, but the movie didn't really explain them so why should we? Oh right, the golden compass. In what was a very Lord of the Rings move, there exists only one golden compass, a truth teller Lyra must protect from the evil Lord Sauron.



CASTING In truth we didn't hate Nicole Kidman as the evil cold Mrs. Coulter. In fact it was a role she seemed born to play. (See photo on left, right up her alley) What we didn't get was Daniel Craig as Lord Asriel. We are sure you have to pay Bond lots of money to be in a movie so why waste his time on about 7 minutes of actual screen time. The biggest BIGGEST casting problem was Lyra and her daemon - pronounced demon because this movie is wicked, wicked, wicked - Lyra looks an old 12-13 like she would be the girl in middle school who had to had have a boyfriend and wore her older sister's make-up, but her daemon's voice is acted by a 6 year old boy, who at any moment seems prone to ask if they can play dinosaurs - that is, he would ask that if the church in their world hasn't already told everyone they never existed. They have that power. These two are supposed to be the SAME age.

HAIR WATCH The true spirit of stupid Hollywood movies reveals itself in Lyra's hair. When will hair and make up people realize that girls who run around pretending to be boys don't let their long flowing hair be long and flowing? It becomes tangly and disgusting and its stupid. They would braid it or cut it, not let a giants rat's nest grow on their head.





WARDROBE We hate to be all nitpicky for details (Okay not really. We really like being nitpicky) but people who travel to where everything is frozen would have a coat that did more than BELT like a bathrobe. Bathrobes are not that warm. We aren't asking for rocket science here, people. We might not even understand if it was rocket science, but we would like to avoid frequent moments in the movie where we have to turn to each other and say "That is just stupid!" (see picture on right and ignore the bear because it really isn't that important) Where people are cold and snow is everywhere, put them in a freaking PARKA. (shout out the accurate layers in Lars and the Real Girl)




SPECIAL EFFECTS: We are obligated to mention the special effects because aside from being one of the rare non cringe worthy aspects, they just won the Oscar and unlike The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe it does not feel like Spongebob and friends joined the human cast for dinner and movie.

CONCLUSION All in all, we would NOT pay 50 cents again for this movie. The only way you could get us to the much hinted at in the movie but probably will never see the light of day sequel would be to first knock us out with a boxed set of the books.