In spite of all the furor and the threatened boycotts, The Golden Compass is here and in theaters and not doing terrible. Nor is it shaking the silver out of people's pockets on a Potteresque scale. After the first full weekend of release, it has garnered a respectable $41 million and has done far better in Europe ($90 million).
However, the Philip Pullman adaptation written and directed by Chris Wietz (whose credits include American Pie, About a Boy and The Nutty Professor II) is not only harmless, it's not even all that good.
One can make the judgment without any smugness. The official reviews have been mixed, with a few people raving about the film, but the rest scratching their heads at what appears to have been a keenly wasted opportunity. Whatever possessed the film producers to succumb to a two-hour cut when so many fantasy films have been logging closer to three is just the beginning of the problem.
"The whole thing was like a trailer for a bigger movie," said my 11-year-old son, Nicholas. "It was like all this action without a real story."
Maybe he should be writing this.
The film seems to have so much going for it--an extraordinary cast, including British heavyweights Derek Jacoby, Christopher Lee and Ian McKellan. Younger lights Nicole Kidman, Bond girl Eva Green and the new Bond guy Daniel Craig add glitz and glamour. The incomparable Sam Elliot plays Scoresby. The role of Lyra is handled competently by the newcomer Dakota Blue Richards (I must have missed the memo that said Dakota was a cool new name for girls). How could they go wrong with such an ensemble?
But the heart of the film can be wrapped up by one of the more useless scenes. It's one of those chasm cliff hangers with a narrow span of ice across, and Lyra, of course, must get over it. Naturally, there's a lot of chipping and cracking, nearly falling and finally the rickety bridge collapsing. But as the outcome was never in doubt, and as the scene really added nothing to the already slim plot, one wonders why all the effort went into it beyond frightening a few small children.
My son, who has not had a chance to read the book, really could not make sense of what was so important for people to be fighting and dying about. The film has no, "There are some things worth fighting for, Mr. Frodo" speech to tie it all together. All we had was the myserious "dust." Nick leaned over about halfway through the movie and asked me, "what is the dust?" I told him to wait for the explanation, only it didn't come. Later, in the ride home, he said, "Well, I guess the dust was important." And then he added in a deep voice, "Use the dust, Luke."
The film is good spectacle with poorly connected plot points, scarcely developed characters, an inexplicable theme, and a yacht load of very fine actors with very little acting to do. Derek Jacoby and Christopher Lee are almost comical as villains who scowl and pose ominously, using threatening tones and language, but we don't really know what makes them so evil other than that they kidnap children and want to control everything, which doesn't really elevate them above the villains in most Disney productions.
At some points even the vaunted CGI lets the viewer down. The polar bears did look at times like their cousins in the winter Coke ads. And the daemons, characters that play a critical part in the book, come off as animated sidekicks lacking in conviction. The film score of highly reputed Alexandre Desplat (The Queen, The Painted Veil, Girl with a Pearl Earring) reminds one at times of the canned sincerity of The Never Ending Story.
Somewhere the issue of free will comes up, practically the only nod to Pullman's philosophy that manages to sneak into the movie, but it's precious little to hang an adventure on. And it's even less to worry about as a parent concerned that subliminal atheism will snatch away the faith of their fathers.
The good news for the film is that it's nowhere near as bad as Eragon. It retains genuine entertainment value and a lot of great Oxford locations. One hopes the DVD release will make some corrections and that the sequel will be less spectacle and more substance.
