Psycho's Movie Reviews #269: The Golden Compass (2007)

The Golden Compass is a 2007 fantasy adventure film based on the 1995 book Northern Lights (which is titled “The Golden Compass” in North America), the first novel in Philip Pullman's trilogy His Dark Materials. Written and directed by Chris Weitz, it stars Nicole Kidman, Dakota Blue Richards, Daniel Craig, Sam Elliott, Eva Green and Ian McKellen. The project was announced in February 2002, but difficulties over the script and the selection of a director caused significant delays. At US$180 million, it was one of New Line Cinema's most expensive projects ever, and its disappointing results in the US contributed to New Line's February 2008 restructuring.

The film depicts the adventures of Lyra Belacqua, an orphan living in a parallel universe where a dogmatic ruling power called the Magisterium opposes free inquiry. Children in that universe are being kidnapped by an unknown group called the Gobblers who are supported by the Magisterium. Lyra joins a tribe of seafarers on a trip to the far North, the land of the armoured polar bears, in search of the missing children.

Before its release, the film received criticism from many quarters, including both secularist organisations for the omitting criticisms of religion – a central theme of His Dark Materials – and religious organisations due to the source material's anti-religious themes. The studio ordered significant changes late in post-production, which Weitz later called a "terrible" experience. Although the film's visual effects (which Weitz has called the film's "most successful element") won both an Oscar and a BAFTA, critical reception of the film was mixed and its revenue was lower than the studio had anticipated.

Plot

In an alternate Earth, a powerful church called the Magisterium strictly controls the populace's beliefs and teachings. In this world, every person's inner spirit partially exists outside the body, manifesting itself as an animal companion called a dæmon. The dæmon communicates with the person and must remain in close physical proximity. Witches, however, have bird-shape dæmons that are able to travel long distances from their bodies.

Lyra Belacqua, whose dæmon is named Pantalaimon or "Pan", is an orphan being raised at Jordan College in Oxford. Her uncle, Lord Asriel, a noted explorer and scholar, has been absent seeking the elusive Dust, a cosmic particle that the Magisterium forbids to be mentioned. When Asriel returns to Oxford, Lyra saves his life after seeing a visiting Magisterium agent spike his wine with an unidentified poison. Asriel later gives a presentation to other scholars regarding his discovery that Dust existing in the North Pole links infinite worlds. Asriel receives a grant for another expedition. If his theory is proven, it could severely undermine the Magisterium's control.

Lyra meets the wealthy Mrs. Coulter, a "friend" of the college. She invites Lyra to stay with her in retro-futuristic London. Before Lyra leaves, the Master of the college entrusts her with her uncle's aethalometer, a compass-like artefact that reveals the truth (the titular golden compass). Few individuals can decipher its symbols. The Magisterium has seized or destroyed all other aethalometers, and Lyra is warned to keep hers a secret.

Lyra notices the aethalometer continuously points to a symbol of a lady, a lightning bolt, and an infant, though she is unable to comprehend its meaning. Soon, Mrs. Coulter's congenial manner changes and shows she is aligned to the Magisterium and its mandate. When Lyra casually mentions Dust, Mrs. Coulter sternly warns her to never mention it again.

Kidnappers called Gobblers have been snatching poor, orphaned, and Gyptian children, including Lyra's friends Roger, an Oxford servant boy, and Billy Costa, a young Gyptian. Lyra later discovers that Mrs. Coulter is head of the General Oblation Board and realizes they are the "Gobblers."

When Mrs. Coulter's dæmon attempts to steal the aethalometer, Lyra and Pan escape with it into the streets. Gobblers pursue her, but she is saved by Ma Costa, Billy's mother. Lyra is taken to the Gyptian king, John Faa, whose ship is heading north to search for the captured children. A wise Gyptian elder named Farder Coram is able to decipher the compass.

After consulting with Magisterium agent Fra Pavel, Mrs. Coulter sends two mechanical spy-flies after Lyra. One is batted away but the other is caught and sealed in a can by Farder Coram, who says the spy-fly has a stinger filled with a sleeping poison. Meanwhile, Lord Asriel has reached Svalbard, the kingdom of the Ice Bears, but he is captured by Samoyed tribesmen hired by Mrs. Coulter.

The witch queen, Serafina Pekkala, tells Lyra the missing children are in an experimental station called Bolvangar. At a northern port, Lyra is befriended by a Texan aeronaut named Lee Scoresby. He advises her to hire him and his friend Iorek Byrnison, an armoured bear that Lee has come to rescue. Once a prince of the armoured bears, Iorek is now exiled in shame, the local townspeople having tricked him out of his armour. Lyra uses the alethiometer to locate Iorek's armour. After recovering it, Iorek joins the Gyptian trek northward, along with Scoresby.

Lyra, astride Iorek, goes to an abandoned building the aethalometer pointed her toward. There, Lyra finds Billy Costa, who has been surgically separated from his dæmon. The Gobblers are experimenting on the kidnapped children using a procedure called "intercession." Lyra reunites Billy with Ma Costa, but the group is attacked by Samoyeds, who capture Lyra. Iorek and Lee follow her in Lee's airship. Lyra is taken to the bear king Ragnar Sturlusson. Knowing Iorek will be outnumbered, Lyra tricks Ragnar into fighting Iorek one-on-one. Ragnar, who usurped Iorek's throne, initially appears to be winning; Iorek feigns weakness and kills Ragnar, avenging his father and regaining his kingdom.

Iorek carries Lyra to Bolvangar, but only Lyra crosses a narrow ice bridge before it collapses. Upon reaching the station, Lyra reunited with Roger. Lyra overhears Mrs. Coulter telling the station scientists that Asriel escaped and has set up a laboratory. Magisterium soldiers are going there to arrest him for heresy. Lyra discovers scientists are experimenting to sever a child from their dæmon, through a process called intercession. Caught spying, Lyra and Pan are thrown into the intercession chamber but Mrs. Coulter rescues her.

Mrs. Coulter tells Lyra that the Magisterium believe intercession protects children from Dust's corrupting influence. She reveals she is Lyra's mother but was forced to give her up; Lyra realises that Asriel is her father. When Mrs Coulter wants the aethalometer, Lyra instead gives her the can containing the spy-fly. The fly stings Mrs Coulter, rendering her unconscious. Lyra destroys the machine, setting off a series of explosions.

Outside, the fleeing children are attacked by Tartar mercenaries and their wolf dæmons. Iorek, Scoresby, the Gyptians, and flying witches led by Serafina join the battle. The Tartars are defeated and the children rescued. Lyra, Roger, Iorek, Lee, and Serafina fly north to search for Asriel. Confirming Serafina's prophecy of an upcoming war with Lyra at its centre, Lyra is determined to fight the Magisterium, who plot to control all the other worlds in the universe.

Production

Development

"Peter's operation was so impressive that, well, I realised the distance between me and Peter Jackson… At that moment, I realised the sheer scope of the endeavour. And I thought, 'You know what? I can't do this'." — Director Chris Weitz on his initial departure from the project

On February 11, 2002, following the success of New Line's The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, the studio bought the rights to Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy. In July 2003, Tom Stoppard was commissioned to write the screenplay. Directors Brett Ratner and Sam Mendes expressed interest in the film, but a year later, Chris Weitz was hired to direct after approaching the studio with an unsolicited 40-page treatment. The studio rejected the script, asking Weitz to start from scratch. Since Weitz was an admirer of Stoppard's work, he decided not to read the adaptation in case he "subconsciously poached things from him." After delivering his script, Weitz cited Barry Lyndon and Star Wars as stylistic influences on the film. In 2004, Weitz was invited by The Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson onto the set of King Kong (2005) in order to gather information on directing a big-budget film, and to receive advice on dealing with New Line Cinema, for whom Jackson had worked on Lord of the Rings. After a subsequent interview in which Weitz said the novel's attacks on organised religion would have to be softened, he was criticised by some fans, and on December 15, 2004, Weitz announced his resignation as director of the trilogy, citing the enormous technical challenges of the epic. He later indicated that he had envisioned the possibility of being denounced by both the book's fans and its detractors, as well as a studio hoping for another Lord of the Rings.

On August 9, 2005, it was announced that British director Anand Tucker would take over from Weitz. Tucker felt the film would thematically be about Lyra "looking for a family", and Pullman agreed: "He has plenty of very good ideas, and he isn't daunted by the technical challenges. But the best thing from the point of view of all who care about the story is his awareness that it isn't about computer graphics; it isn't about fantastic adventures in amazing-looking worlds; it's about Lyra." Tucker resigned on May 8, 2006, citing creative disagreements with New Line, and Weitz returned to direct. Weitz said "I'm both the first and third director on the film … but I did a lot of growing in the interim."

According to producer Deborah Forte, Tucker wanted to make a smaller, less exciting film than New Line wanted. New Line production president Toby Emmerich said of Weitz's return: "I think Chris realised that if he didn't come back in and step up, maybe the movie wasn't going to get made … We really didn't have a Plan B at that point." Weitz was attracted back to the project after receiving a letter from Pullman asking him to reconsider. Since his departure, blueprints, production design and visual effects strategies had been put into position, and while Weitz admitted that his fears did not vanish, the project suddenly seemed feasible for the director.

Filming

Filming began at Shepperton Studios on September 4, 2006, with additional sequences shot in Switzerland and Norway. Filming also took place at the Old Royal Naval College at Greenwich, Chiswick House in London, and in Radcliffe Square, Christ Church, Oxford, Exeter College, Oxford, The Queen's College, Oxford, The Historic Dockyard Chatham and Hedsor House in Buckinghamshire.

Design

Production designer Dennis Gassner says of his work on the film: "The whole project is about translation—translation from something you would understand into something that is in a different vernacular. So, it's a new signature, looking into another world that seems familiar but is still unique. There's a term I use—called 'kludging'—it's taking one element and combining it with another element to make something new. It's a hybrid or amalgamation, and that's what this movie is about from a design perspective. It's about amalgamating ideas and concepts and theoretical and physical environments."

Rhythm and Hues Studios created the main dæmons and Framestore CFC created all the bears. British company Cinesite created the secondary dæmons.

Release/Reception/Box Office

The film premiered in London on November 27, 2007, and was released on December 5, 2007, in British cinemas by Entertainment Film Distributors and released on December 7, 2007, in American cinemas by New Line Cinema.

Reviews of The Golden Compass were mixed. On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 42%, based on 198 reviews, with an average score of 5.60/10. The critical consensus reads: "Without the bite or the controversy of the source material, The Golden Compass is reduced to impressive visuals overcompensating for lax storytelling." At Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the film has received an average score of 51, based on 33 reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews".

Manohla Dargis of The New York Times said that the film "crams so many events, characters, twists and turns, sumptuously appointed rooms and ethereally strange vistas... that it risks losing you in the whirl" and that while The Golden Compass is "an honourable work," it is "hampered by its fealty to the book and its madly rushed pace." James Berardinelli of ReelReviews gave the film 2.5 stars out of 4, calling it "adequate, but not inspired" and criticising the first hour for its rushed pace and sketchily-developed characters. James Christopher of The Times of London was disappointed, praising the "marvellous" special effects and casting, but saying that the "books weave a magic the film simply cannot match" and citing a "lack of genuine drama."

Time rated it a "A-" and called it a "good, if familiar fantasy," saying "The find is Dakota Blue Richards... who's both grounded and magical." Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian rated it 4 stars out of 5, praising Nicole Kidman's casting and saying it had "no other challengers as 2007's big Christmas movie." Leonard Maltin gave the film 3 out of 4 stars, and said that "Richards is persuasive" and that it "does a good job of introducing us to an unfamiliar world." Critic Roger Ebert awarded the film 4 out of 4 stars and called it "a darker, deeper fantasy epic than the "Rings" trilogy (The Lord of the Rings), The Chronicles of Narnia or the Potter films," saying that it "creates villains that are more complex and poses more intriguing questions. As a visual experience, it is superb. As an escapist fantasy, it is challenging... I think it is a wonderfully good-looking movie, with exciting passages and a captivating heroine."

Pullman himself was described by a London Times interviewer as sounding "ambivalent" and "guarded" about the film, saying in March 2008: "A lot of things about it were good… Nothing's perfect. Nothing can bring out all that's in the book. There are always compromises." He hoped, however, that the rest of the trilogy would be adapted with the same cast and crew. In July 2009, after this possibility had been exhausted, Weitz told Time magazine that he thought the film's special effects ended up being its "most successful element."

Debbie Day of Premiere magazine said "The Golden Compass ultimately fails as a film in its broad strokes and inadequate scene development."

The North American opening weekend return was "a little disappointing" for New Line Cinema, earning US$25.8 million with total domestic box-office of $70 million compared to an estimated $180 million production budget. Despite this, the film's fortunes rebounded as its performance outside the United States was described as "stellar" by Variety, and as "astonishing" by New Line. In the United Kingdom, the film grossed $53,198,635 and became the second-highest-grossing non-sequel of 2007 there (behind The Simpsons Movie). In Japan, the film was officially released in March 2008 on 700 screens, ultimately grossing $33,501,399; but previews of the film between February 23–24, 2008, earned $2.5 million. By July 6, 2008, it had earned $302,127,136 internationally, totalling $372,234,864 worldwide. Overseas rights to the film were sold to fund the $180 million production budget for the film, so most of these profits did not go to New Line. This has been cited as a possible "last straw" in Time Warner's decision to merge New Line Cinema into Warner Bros. Pictures.

Budget $180 million

Box office $372.2 million

My Review

I have not read the books, so to ignorant people like me, we are told in the prologue that the known universe is made up of many parallel worlds (which we will see only in the sequels), and in this one, every person has a Daemon, which is an animal representation of one's soul, kind of like the totems in the animated series Visionaries, only that they live side by side, and can be interacted with. Granted, if the Daemon/soul dies, the body dies with it too, and vice versa. We follow the exploits of Lyra, a natural liar, who gets in her possession The Golden Compass so that she can take it to Lord Asriel (Daniel Craig), who has set off to discover the origins of Dust (like Spice in Dune, only that it appears in the icy cold Northern regions, and looks very much like the Aurora Borealis, hence the English title Northern Lights), only that the concept of Dust is akin to original sin, thereby bringing allusions to religion into the plot.

Director Chris Weitz has stated that the religious overtones in the movie has been dumbed down, and that I agree. While The Authority and the Magisterium refers so obviously to God and the Church, these are mentioned only in passing, so much so that you do not even care much about the characters, and want your recognizable stars on screen as much as they can. Daniel Craig gets pretty much what you see in the trailer, save for something which I thought was quite Bond like with his experiencing what George Lazenby did during his stint On Her Majesty's Secret Service. Eva Green returns as a witchy archer (LOTR Reference #1), but thankfully doesn't share any screen time with Craig, lest we scream "Finish her, Bond!".

Nicole Kidman, given top billing in the movie, actually does quite little, with her Mrs Coulter, as head of the a secret police, much like any authoritarian regime would have. All she needed to do was to fit into beautiful gowns with some dalliances here and there, and that's it. Again, she doesn't share screen time with Criag, lest we scream "No! His body has been snatched!". So who does the weight of this movie fall on? Dakota Blue Richards.

Given that she's a fresh face picked from thousands of contenders, she ought to be good. And thankfully, yes. She becomes the new Frodo with her own Sam (LOTR Reference #2) - her daemon Pam (voiced by Freddie Highmore), gathering her own Fellowship from the likes of Gyptians (like Merry Men from Caribbean Pirates), witches, a renegade cowboy (Sam Elliott in yet another of such roles), and the Aragon (LOTR Reference #3) of her gang, the Polar Bear prince-in-exile Iorek Byrnison (voiced by Ian McKellen, LOTR Reference #4) who saves her hide time and again. In fact, the polar bear hear provides much needed action entertainment, like an incredible Hulk each time brawn is required. While the movie is mainly talk and plenty of running away, the bear provides some balls in standing up and fighting for what's his, or what's contracted, hence becoming the highlight of the movie.

But as with all good things, if it's milked too often, the novelty wears off, such as having Lyra riding on his back like a girl on an amusement park pony ride. So nice was the animation and the grandeur of the scale, that we get to see it again, and again, and again. We don't want to see the bear as a pony, but an ass-kicking bad mofo since it talks so tough, get it? And the only other battle scene The Golden Compass has, is the final battle which is a notch better than that from The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, probably assisted by less theatrics.

Granted, this movie is not about action, but I do want to add that it does help to spice things up in between the mambo jumbo talk of the Magisterium feeling threatened, talks of Chosen Ones, and the threat of what could be the mother of all evil contraptions, which turned out looking like a human sized bird cage with the power to split out a human's soul, turning one into a mindless, obedient servant of the Magisterium, whose advice to the masses is always good and pure (yeah right, and hmm), and whose objective is to establish a nanny state. Probably those calling for the boycott of the movie will tell me that I miss out on the more obvious point that the story promotes atheism, but to that I say "pah", give me my year end sword and sorcery movie instead, without the hullabaloo of how it screws religion up, ala the big fight and debate with Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ, and Ron Howard's The Da Vinci Code.

The Golden Compass is lovely to look at, I mean I really liked the costumes and the scenery. The problem is that the plot of the film is a bit muddled. I haven't read the book by Phillip Pullman but I've heard from my brother it's very good. Back to the film, there were some scenes where the action felt rushed, and others got a bit confusing plot wise. I think that director Chris Weitz was trying to cram too much into a 108 minute film, and because of that, the script became increasingly uneven and contrived. Though on a positive note, I really liked the acting. Dakota Blue Richards gave a spirited performance as Lyra, and Nicole Kidman looks beautiful and manipulative as Mrs Coulter. And Ian McKellan did a superb job with the voicing of the polar bear, and the polar bear fight was definitely one of the better scenes of the movie. The only casting problem was that of Daniel Craig, he just seemed out of character. All in all, an enjoyable film, with a 7.7/10