Rating: 7 / 10

Starring

Nicole Kidman, Daniel Craig, Dakota Blue Richards, Sam Elliott

The Plot

Lyra Belacqua (Richards) is a young girl who can use the golden compass to see truth in any situation. She finds herself swept up in a roaming adventure when her friends are kidnapped at the hands of a group known as the Gobblers.

The Good

“The Golden Compass” takes a welcome stab at making the fantasy genre into something more than good vs. evil and avoids following the leads of movies like “The Lord of the Rings” and “The Chronicles of Narnia.”

Also, Discovery Channel watchers who secretly cheer when the alligators and wildebeasts face off will be amazed at what giant, fighting computer-animated polar bears are capable of doing.

The Bad

The film definitely moves quickly and shows clear signs that elements in the story have been eliminated to keep the movie barely under two hours. Also, the ending is very anticlimactic and will leave an audience wanting more. This is a screenplay that would have benefited from at least 20 more pages.

The Lowdown

The fad of fantasy films is not yet over, and “The Golden Compass” is only the latest contributor to the trend. However, this movie addresses different subject matter from the standard heroes with broadswords, resurrecting wizards and pointy-eared archers.

Lyra Belacqua is an inquisitive young girl who always stands her ground and needs to know the truth about everything. She lives in a parallel universe where people’s souls roam outside of their bodies in the form of animals.

The people in this alternate reality live under the authority of the Magisterium, a secretive state police. When Lord Asriel (Craig) discovers information that might threaten the Magisterium’s hold on authority, deceit, treachery and kidnapping become fair game in silencing the truth.

The heroes in this movie become more concerned with knowing the absolute truth than with arguing what that truth is. The Magisterium is consumed with suppressing questioning young minds and wants people to only obey blind authority.

Roger Waters should have written the soundtrack to this movie with how much it takes from “The Wall.” Themes of individuality, rebellion and independent thought may be too well-hidden, and children especially may not grasp them.

While the movie does a great job at combining science fiction inventions with fantasy characters, it fails at combining adult themes with a plot designed for children, and instances of violence make the movie’s PG-13 rating well earned. This film needs to decide who it was made for.

“The Golden Compass” should be seen based merely on the fact that it is trying to put a new spin on the fantasy genre. Just be aware that more thought goes into forming intelligent questions than cutting off an orc’s head.