[David Forbes]

Saw this movie tonight with my son. I've read all the books and enjoyed them immensely, but I am not a religious person and share many of Pullman's views.

That said, there is nothing offensive in any way in this movie to a person of faith (any faith). The film is anti-authoritarian, not anti-religion, and the Magisterium has no relation to the church. I agree with Ebert, it's more of a dictatorship than religious institution.

I enjoyed the film, but the ending is so awful that I think it will devastate its box office chances.

Spoiler:

It has no ending! It just freaking stops while Lyra and the others are on the way to "rescue" her father (without yet realizing that what he is just as bad as the others they've just fled). The entire audience was having a collective "wtf?" moment.

The book ends with Lord Azrael murdering Lyra's friend to open the doorway between worlds through the aurora borealis. I think that would have been a much more powerful ending than the non-ending they have now.

The theater was nearly full, but I don't think there were many patrons pleased by the end.

[Phil Florian]

I agree with David. The patrons following last night's viewing were mostly making fun of it. A few of the boys (teens, 20's, whatever) were doing some "yeah!" moments relating entirely to the bear sequences but that is about it. The rest were shaking their heads. A few were saying it was good and some great but mostly it had a head-shaking response.

Because this is no Harry Potter, this will probably not get the box office response it needs to move to some real directors with vision. Weitz lacks even Columbus' workmanlike storytelling skills so even when stuff looked good, it rarely played well. I read the book and know it's details and understood that stuff would be missing but they did a poor job of cutting and pasting and forgot to put a cogent story or through line. It is sad, because I think this property in the hands of someone who "gets" fantasy and/or the books would have a field day with the follow up novels. My guess is that New Line will be rattled at the poor response and this will be all we will get.

Maybe the DVD will have the correct ending tagged on so we get the correct story (it was clearly shot as it showed up in trailers). But this ending that was less of a cliff-hanger and more of a jaw hanger is was pretty bad. The real ending is also a cliff hanger but leaves with twisted around and rethinking some of the character's motivations.

The saddest part is that Dakota Blue Richards was a great Lyra. But by the time New Line is done hand-wringing over lukewarm reviews (what is worse than a bad review? "Bleh" ones.) and figures out what to do next she will be aged out of the role. Maybe. The next book definitely deals with more adolescent issues that an older Lyra would be fine for so there is hope. I hope they don't give up on the property but, like with Potter, I hope they spend time and money on a director with some visionary skills to take the series to where it needs to go. It took Potter until the 3rd movie for them to get this but with Pullman books, we just don't have the time!

[Robert Crawford]

This thread is now the Official Review Thread for "The Golden Compass". Please post all HTF member reviews in this thread.

Any other comments, links to other reviews, or discussion items will be deleted from this thread without warning!

If you need to discuss those type of issues then I have designated an Official Discussion Thread.



Crawdaddy

[Patrick Sun]

Ever wonder what would happen if someone made a film from the Cliff Notes of a book? Well, look no further, "The Golden Compass" is pretty much that film. It's very short of characterization, almost adequate with exposition by the characters (laughably so, at times), and fairly bad when it comes to plotting and editing. Director Weitz is simply not cut out for the visual demands of a fantastical tale such as TGC, and provides us with fairly static camerawork and uninteresting angles.

There are some bright spots, like Dakota Blue Richards as Lyra, and the CGI creatures ranged from awfully cute to truly vicious. Would have loved to seen more of the world of Lyra before the plot whisked them away.

Anyhow, most will focus on the horrendous "ending" that isn't. It was like watching a film rolling down the highway and then running out of gas. *shakes head*

I give it 1.75 stars, or a grade of C-.

[Claire Panke]

Patrick, you nailed it.

When I heard that the Tom Stoppard script had been ditched and Weitz was at the helm I thought New Line was heading for trouble. Can Bob Shaye say "hubris"? Very, very disappointing.

There is absolutely nothing in Weitz's resume that should have lead anyonw to think he was the right guy for any sort of literary epic, fantasy or otherwise. Despite his enthusiam, he was completely unable to shape this material into anything resembling a real movie - TGC is cluttered, affectless and lifeless. NL of all studios should have known throwing $$ and CGI at a fantasy is no guarantee of success. A real shame as the cast is great, the art direction, costuming and cinematography are all excellent.

There will be much hand wringing and posting about how fantasy doesn't sell...but I think it's more accurate to say that complex storytelling needs a real filmmaker in charge - bad movies are a hard sell whatever the genre.

[Ricardo C]

I haven't read the books yet, though I picked them up right after seeing the film today, which I guess speaks well of the film. Looking forward to them (and the "The Art of the Two Towers" hardcover I picked up for $4.50 )

The film felt incredibly rushed, almost like a "greatest hits" cut, desperately trying to hit all the highlights from the first book. We get introduced to Lyra, Pan, and Lord Asriel, and almost immediately afterwards, Lyra's off with Mrs. Coulter for no apparent reason other than Coulter's fondness for her. All the meetings in the film felt that way to me.

But the world so lovingly rendered by the film left an impression, as did several of the characters (Lyra and Iorek in particular), so as soon as I left the theater, I made my way to the bookstore and bought the books. The movie isn't perfect, but darn if it didn't leave me wanting to read the full story.