|
is really only in the movie for the better part of two scenes, but Kidman clearly relishes her villainous role and is a lot of fun to watch. There’s plenty of voice-over work also: Freddie Highmore plays Lyra’s daemon, while Ian McKellen makes the strongest impression as the polar bear Iorek Byrnison. His climactic fight with the evil bear Ragnar (Ian McShane) is staged like a WWF match, but is kind of awesome nonetheless.
The lively performances make up for some filmmaking dullness; director Chris Weitz had actually dropped out of the film at one point, fearing that the movie was too big in scale for him, but returned after his replacement had “creative differences” with New Line. As a result, he plays things very safe, sometimes at the expense of excitement; the facility of kidnapped children, for example, could’ve felt really terrifyingly in the right hands.
I think overall the film succeeds. For all its imperfections, it entertains, and the lack of much of a sweeping narrative might be rectified if its sequels are made as planned and we can watch the saga in its entirety – that is, if the rest of the saga is as good and any personal agenda of the author doesn’t overshadow an otherwise solid minor fantasy story.
Movie Grade: B
Synopsis:
The Golden Compass is an exciting fantasy adventure, set in a parallel world where people´s souls manifest themselves as small animals, talking bears fight wars and children are mysteriously disapperaring. At the center of the story is a 12-year-old girl, Lyra, who sets out to find and rescue her best friend, Roger, and ends up on an extraordinary quest to save not only her own world, but ours as well. |
