Wednesday, December 5, 2024

The Golden Compass


The Golden Compass is also called an alethiometer, and the way it is large and round and pops open it looks like Juno's hamburger phone. The Golden Compass mixes cosmic mythology, parallel universes, and CGI animals that are as watchable if not more fun than Enchanted's Pip.
A docket of name stars in supporting roles - Daniel Craig, Eva Green, Nicole Kidman, Sam Elliott, Derek Jacobi, Christopher Lee, the voices of the Ians (McKellan and McShane) - will launch this film worldwide but newcomer lass Dakota Blue Richards gives the film an energetic gravitas as the girl who must save her world from dust particles that can unite or destroy entire planets. Or something like that.
Some talking amoured polar bears are pretty cool when one needs to traverse snowbound landscapes while also providing calvary over the hill relief. There are the bad guys who want to kidnap kids for a nefarious experiment that strips them of the souls. Only in this narrative a person's soul is an animal that walks (and talks) alongside you. For children the souls, or demons, can change shape at will.
The whole magilla is the first part of a trilogy known as the Dark Materials. For a PG-13 film Golden Compass doesn't quite push the boundaries like Beowulf but does provide the prerequisite amount of visual splendor for a fantasy film. Look for comparisons to Lord of the Rings (a franchise trilogy) or Harry Potter (alternative religious symbolism), because people are always searching for similarities in such endevours. Golden Compass has the ability to match those films in their darker aspects while being intelligent enough to skew older audiences with its combination of fantasy, cowboys, talking animals, conspiracies and witches.

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