Movie and Television Reviews

People will react to The Golden Compass differently. I therefore rate it a/an:

"A" for ACLU members. "B-" for doctrinaire atheists. "C" for agnostics. "C-" for deists. "D+" if you're still impressed by CG special effects. "D" for Ozzy Osbourne fans. "D-" for everybody else.

To my free-thinking friends: I'm sorry to report that you'll have to wait until next year for your Winter Solstice classic. To those who, under the edict of your slave masters, plan on avoiding The Golden Compass (TGC): Don't worry that you're depriving your children of fine entertainment, for TGC is the most relentlessly dreary and unsatisfying children's movie since the Dick Cheney version of Miracle on 34th Street.

Let's get the plot out of the way:

TGC is set in an alternative Britain ruled by an all-powerful theocratic government called the "Magisterium." The distinguishing feature of this world is that people's "souls" exist outside of their bodies as animals called "Daemons."

A noble, Lord Asriel (Daniel Craig), finds evidence of "dust," a substance that allows people to travel to any of the myriad parallel universes, and wishes to investigate further in the frozen "north." The evil Cathol... sorry... the evil Magisterium opposes the search for dust because its discovery may threaten the Magisterium's hold on power.

Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig

Meanwhile, a colleague of Lord Asriel gives rebellious tween Lyra Belacqua an alethiometer or "Golden Compass" which allows her to see the truth. Marisa Coulter (a beautiful, hip-less Nicole Kidman), an evil Magisterium operative, takes Lyra to her mansion. At first, the mansion, with its luxurious appointments and wonderful art, enthralls Lyra. When Coulter tries to check Lyra's impudence, however, Lyra becomes suspicious and investigates Coulter's room. Lyra finds that Coulter is part of the General Oblation Board, a group that kidnaps and brainwashes children (Think: North Korean summer camp).

Lyra escapes through a window. Some witches, ingeniously referred to as "witches," and a group called the "Gyptions" (Gypsies) offer her shelter and help her find Lord Asriel in the north who himself has been captured by Magisterium-employed mercenaries. Along the way, Lyra encounters some not-at-all-stereotyped characters like a fighting Bear called Iorek Byrnison and a plain spoken, action-oriented, gun-totin', American cowboy named Lee Scoresby. With her new friends in the fight, Lyra decides to free the children from the General Oblation Board thugs called "Gobblers" and then some other things happen which I won't bore you with.

Drama:

The movie is a horrible mess, unfantastical, and assuredly, the last film you'll see from this trilogy. My prediction stems from the audience reaction at the Krikorian in Pico Rivera who, judging from their Raider bumper stickers, were unaware of the controversy. The only scene that elicited any applause at all was one in which Byrnison "dejaws" the king of the bears in a UFC-style fighting match. I've distilled the movies flaws into the following eight general failures:

1. The talkiest adventure ever: With a spoken-exposition to action ratio of 100 to 1, I felt as though I was attending a script pitch instead of an actual movie. Long explanations accompany every new character and plot development. We don't really need, for example, two explanations of exactly how the compass works, especially since Lyra manipulates it intuitively. The Daemons are partly responsible for TGC's loquaciousness as they give every character a constant, chatty companion.

Lord of the Rings (LOTR), in contrast, handles the complex world of Middle Earth with a fair-sized introduction and maybe a spoken paragraph here and there. Gandalf doesn't spend time explaining why Sting glows blue instead of fuschia; he looks at Pippin like an idiot for asking. TGC' blather is especially trying because...

2. ...we don't care. If one can judge by the city's skyline, the Magisterium aren't all that horrible. Sure, taking children and lying about dust is bad, but, unlike the evil, frightening regimes in the Matrix or LOTR, the Magisterium will only inspire hatred amongst those who bring anti-clerical prejudices with them into the theater.

The characters care about each other, but you wonder: "why?". Minutes after meeting, Lyra and Byrnison establish a bond over which each is willing to sacrifice their life. Why? The same undeserved loyalty occurs between Scoresby and Lyra. In the end, our detachment from the characters cause revelations concerning Lyra's ancestry to be as interesting as an announcement that the guy down the street prefers boxers.

3. Part of the reason we don't find the characters compelling is that the movie moves so quickly that little time is spent developing relationships or establishing motivations. Except for a roof scene between Lyra and her friend, Roger, we don't get any reflective moments to serve as buddy- builders. Compounding the problem is the fact Lyra doesn't travel much with any of her friends. Traveling during a quest allows characters to deepen a sense of attachment. In TGC, we're just supposed to take it for granted that they love each other.

TGC's sprint-like pace doesn't build the story up to a rousing conclusion; it wears it down. By the end, the audience, exhausted from broadsides of plot and character, is glad to go home. Indeed, every time I looked up from my popcorn, somebody escaped from somebody and with each successive breakout, my interest in the outcome diminished. We don't get a chance to savor any of the scenery because the locales change every ten minutes. It's almost as if the director lost his bottle of Ritalin right before production. TGC introduces new characters too quickly and dispenses with them as fast. The far superior Stardust spends a good twenty minutes fleshing out Robert de Niro's gay pirate character and we end up loving that swishy buccaneer as a result.

4. The film's tempo also leads to overly expedient -even outright illogical- solutions to TGC's mostly nonsensical situations. Byrnison decides, after talking to Lyra for three minutes (during a recounting of his life that sounds like a boring Dr. Laura call), to break into the church and steal back his armor. When caught, Scoresby rescues Byrnison. Again, why would Scoresby go out of his way? Because of the two minutes he spent with Lyra on the dock? What drives these people?

In the beginning of the movie, Lyra saves Lord Asriel by informing him that an evil Magisterium guy tried to poison him. Here we have the most powerful organization in the world and they're not able to silence one professor. If they're so powerful, why don't they just seize him? Why don't they try to poison him again? Vladimir Putin would have gotten rid of Lord Asriel by the end of the opening credits. Why is dust only found in the north if it's a universal substance? Why is the most powerful object on earth, the alethiometer, in the possession of a mid-level school bureaucrat who's free to hand it off to little girls? Why does the Magisterium have to kidnap kids if they're so powerful? Wouldn't they control the schools anyways? Do they have vouchers? Why does Coulter take Lyra to her apartment? Why do people follow a little child? Why...anything in this movie?

5. The plot is complicated- in a bad way. Like Aragorn and Frodo in LOTR, the main characters, Lord Asriel and Lyra, split up, but pursue the same goal which is...I'm not sure- maybe the dust. Bring down the Magisterium? Escape? It's only later that we find out that Lyra's to rescue the children from the Gobblers, a course of action she arrives at by accident, I think. The uncertainty and confusion don't allow the audience to pity the children, anyhow. It's all too sudden. Too spackled on. An unclear mission objective makes for a boring quest movie and an unemotional conclusion and brother, TGC is one and has the other. As for Asriel: except for a brief ambush, the movie prefers to deal with him through boring narration.

We don't fully understand why the Magisterium wishes to separate children from their Daemons. We don't know the motivations of the witches, the Gyptions, nothing, despite all of the talking. Do they have an organized opposition to the Magisterium like the rebel alliance in Star Wars or are they outcasts like the people living underground in Total Recall?

Except for the effect of Daemons disappearing when killed, the alleged climax is neither visually nor dramatically impressive. Throughout the movie, my only consistent thought was: "get on with it." The audience groaned at the "to be continued" ending.

6. The acting is stylized and sub par all around. The underage portion of the TGC cast's acting is as bad as their uniformly poor teeth (They don't have Crest in that universe?). Lyra goes from being obnoxiously annoying to tearfully sad within one frame. An intermediate lip bite would have been nice.

It's rare to find a bad-acting citizen of the British commonwealth (+ Ireland), but Daniel Craig doesn't do much of anything and how hard is it to play Cruella De Ville? On the bright side, the performances do match the TGC's emotional emptiness.

Lyra, I said: "Brush your teeth."

7. The world is unimaginative. Gypsiums? Witches? Tartars? Magic things that let you see truth? Familiars? Just like the magical elements in Pan's Labyrinth, you can take the daemons out of TGC and it wouldn't change the theme or story one bit. The daemons are gimmicky annoyances whose sole function is to echo the character's personality. And I haven't seen Jules Verne- type impractical yet conceivable flying machines in six months.

A flying balloon and a flying witch: How creative!

If only the story rose to the level of a conventional quest, I would have been fairly happy.

The villains are as scary as the mean grocer down the street. The heroes as inspiring as injury lawyers.

8. Finally, for a kid movie, TGC is one joyless two hours. No cute beavers here.

Politics/Message:

Quick, tell me which behavior is most lacking in today's youth? You got it! Open defiance. What activity should any reasonable parent encourage? Right again! Skipping Church to hang out with street people and witches. At the heart of TGC's message is an establishment-safe counter-culturalism and the brain-dead moral inversion that usually accompanies faux rebellion: What's good is bad and vice versa (although I'm sure the film-makers are secretly glad that people don't take that maxim seriously when they go to the supermarket or contract plumbers). Therefore, the Church is evil while gypsies and witches are good. Disobeying parental authority is good; obedience-bad. TGC doesn't call people's external animal souls "angels," but "daemons," a name usually reserved for Hell's minions. And, in this universe, the name "Magisterium" (In the book, Pullman uses the slightly less subtle, "Church.") refers to the sum of all Roman Catholic doctrine.

One value that people of varying perspectives can agree on is that oppression should be resisted. Not content with the reluctant defensive warrior of Narnia, however, TGC heartily endorses violence at its most extreme. John Faa, king of the Gyptians delivers a call to arms that would make 2002 George Bush blush. Lyra isn't interested in conciliation. Her nagging finally convinces Byrnison, who proudly declares that "war is the sea in which I swim,' to fight. Not since 300, has a movie so unabashedly glorified war.

Leave it to an atheist to create the most simplistic moral universe in Cinemadom. I think Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress has more moral ambiguity. The characters are either wholly evil or totally good, with their one-dimensionality mirrored in their daemons (Coulter's monkey has the temperament of a Michael Vick champion). Lyra never has to struggle with her conscience. Neither does Lord Asriel. The Magisterium council members are strait from a French Revolution pamphlet. The Gobblers and Tartars, and pro-Magisterium mercenaries are no better than the orcs in LOTR.

Like Chesterton's famous adage that people who don't believe in God believe in everything, TGC would rather have children believe in things that are obviously untrue than things that are possibly false. For an atheist-created movie, the Britain in TGC sure has its metaphysical flourishes: People have "souls;" magical dust mingles with reality; and people can place "souls" into machines (The Vernish bug-machine spies are lame, by the way.).

Historically, TGC is very weak. Why would people be free if the Magisterium were to collapse? Examples of so-called rational, atheist-based anti-Clerical movements; the French, Chinese, and Russian revolutions, resulted in the most repressive, bloodiest regimes in human history.

You can say that TMC is only against religious abuse. I suppose, and back up that claim by citing the mention of the "soul" and the examples of magic in TGC.

Towards the end, one of the characters insists that they're fighting for free will. Think about it: what would a rational atheist consider free-will? If we're just smarter animals, wouldn't all of our actions have some sort of biological basis? Wouldn't we just act in our own self-interest, according to the laws of evolution?

My advice is to exercise your God-given free will and skip The Golden Compass.

Credits below:

Follow up:

Directed by
Chris Weitz

Writing credits
Philip Pullman (novel "Northern Lights" also released as "The Golden Compass")

Chris Weitz (screenplay)

Cast (in credits order)

Nicole Kidman ... Marisa Coulter

Daniel Craig ... Lord Asriel
Dakota Blue Richards ... Lyra Belacqua
Ben Walker ... Roger

Freddie Highmore ... Pantalaimon (voice)

Ian McKellen ... Iorek Byrnison (voice)

Eva Green ... Serafina Pekkala
Jim Carter ... John Faa
Tom Courtenay ... Farder Coram

Ian McShane ... Ragnar Sturlusson (voice)

Sam Elliott ... Lee Scoresby

Christopher Lee ... First High Councilor

Kristin Scott Thomas ... Stelmaria (voice)
Edward de Souza ... Second High Councilor

Kathy Bates ... Hester (voice)

Simon McBurney ... Fra Pavel
Jack Shepherd ... Master

Magda Szubanski ... Mrs. Lonsdale

Derek Jacobi ... Magisterial Emissary
Clare Higgins ... Ma Costa
Charlie Rowe ... Billy Costa
Steven Loton ... Tony Costa
Michael Antoniou ... Kerim Costa
Mark Mottram ... Jaxer Costa
Paul Antony-Barber ... Bolvangar Doctor
Jason Watkins ... Bolvangar Official

Jody Halse ... Bolvangar Orderly
Hattie Morahan ... Sister Clara
John Bett ... Thorold
John Franklyn-Robbins ... Librarian
Jonathan Laury ... Younger Fellow
Tommy Luther ... Jacob Huismans / Daemon Puppeteer
James Rawlings ... Passing Scholar
Joao de Sousa ... Hunt
Habib Nasib Nader ... Ragnar
Theo Fraser Steele ... Magisterial Officer

Bill Hurst ... Police Captain
Elliot Cowan ... Commanding Officer
Sam Hoare ... Second-in-Command
Thomas Arnold ... Gobbler #1
David Garrick ... Gobbler #2
Brian Nickels ... Gobbler #3
Gary Kane ... Gobbler #4

Alfred Harmsworth ... Gyptian Kid
Charles Evanson ... Gyptian Chief #1
Patrick Cleary ... Gyptian Chief #2
Tarek Khalil ... Gyptian Chief #3
Madrios Ohannessian ... Gyptian Chief #4
Sandra Wolfe ... Gyptian Chief #5
Hewson Osbourne ... Fellow #1
Albert Kendrick ... Fellow #2
John Cartier ... Fellow #3
Chris Abbott ... Fellow #4

Alex Terentyev ... Tartar Officer
David Forman ... Samoyed Kidnapper
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Produced by
Bill Carraro .... producer
Toby Emmerich .... executive producer
Deborah Forte .... producer
Michael Lynne .... executive producer
Ileen Maisel .... executive producer
Andrew Miano .... executive producer
Mark Ordesky .... executive producer
Robert Shaye .... executive producer
Paul Weitz .... executive producer

Original Music by
Alexandre Desplat