REVIEW: The Golden Compass

I sat down to watch the big screen adaptation of Philip Pullmans novel without first reading it, and with most book to film conversions the paper version is usually much more deep, thoughfull and engrossing than their celluloid brother for the people who have actually had the time to read it.

I wasn’t expecting too much of this film, as to be honest I hadn’t heard much about it from friends and family before watching it, and had only caught the regular trailers on TV of giant white polar bears, but as the film began it had more than a feel of Peter Jackson’s acclaimed Lord Of The Rings Trilogy, which for me is a good thing since I love the books and the film versions so much.

Essentially for all you like me who haven’t read Pullman’s novel(s) the story goes like this (don’t worry I wont spoil the storyline for you.) Our world as we know it is flanked by multiple alternate realities, and in the one where the film takes place, the people do not have souls in their bodies, there souls are incased in animals that can not be seperated from their other half called “daemons”, these daemons change shape and appearance during childhood, in reaction to how the child is feeling at the time, before being finally locked down in adulthood. The ruling power of the land (the Magisterium) believes that the childrens daemons are being corrupted by a magical force called “dust” (not a very imaginative title) which links all the alternate universes and hatches a plan to prevent the corruption by removing the childs daemon from its other half, but first they need test subjects, and unsurprisingly people don’t want to be split apart from their children so a dark group of people called the “Gobblers” start snatching children from their homes and taking them to the frozen wastelands of the north for testing.

Enter left our leading lady Lyra Belaqua played by the amazing Dakota Blue Richards, her friends get taken by the Gobblers, but luckily for her the people who have been tutoring her for her uncle all these years gave her a magical gift just before she left with the evil Mrs Coulter (played by Nicole Kidman) a Golden Compass, which allows a special chosen person to see the truth in anything by setting the three hands of the compass to various symbols (thus asking it a question) and concentrating very hard. As time passes she works out that Coulter is the head of the Gobblers and escapes from her evil clutches, and gets rescued by a group of travellers called the Gyptians (who also double up as the parents of one of her missing friends) together they all set off to the north on an adventure to save the friends and find her uncle Asriel who is in the North trying to investigate the dust and try to travel between dimensions.

Overall when you put into context that this film is the first part of a trilogy I think the film makers have done very well, it certainly hooked me. Dakota Blue Richards is an inspired casting, playing a very strong willed, independent young girl who takes after her uncle Lord Asriel (Daniel Craig) and I personally found Nicole Kidman’s character really cold and heartless, whilst also being able to use her feminine charms to get what she needs, but as I mentioned before there is more than a whiff of Lord Of The Rings about it, and that shows with the casting of Sir Ian Mckellen as the king of the bears and Christoper Lee as a high councillor, both are amazing actors but they had too big a part in LOTR, and you keep expecting the bear to scream “You Shall Not Pass!!!”. Hopefully the next film will try to stand on its own two feet a little more and not try to rest on similar films such as Harry Potter and LOTR, but I am optimistic as to where the film is going and am going to try and get my hands on Philip Pullman’s trilogy as this film has certainly peaked my interest and I would like to delve a little deeper into the Daemon and Dust aspects of the storyline, which is something many of the people who read the books found a little dissapointing about the adaptation.

Definatly worth a watch in my opinion -

Rating:

The Golden Compass is out on DVD April 28th

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