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Wednesday, Oct 08, 2008
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Uneven Compass hardly golden |
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| Uneven Compass hardly golden | |
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by Sara Michelle Fetters -
SGN Contributing Writer
In an alternate universe similar to our own, 12-year-old Lyra Belacqua (Dakota Blue Richards) lives a life of erudition and relative comfort as the ward of her uncle Jordan College elder Lord Asriel (Daniel Craig). Against the orders of the ruling elite known as the Magisterium, the college sends their esteemed colleague deep into the Arctic Circle to investigate a mysterious element intriguingly called Dust. He believes this element can bridge the gap between worlds, a thesis those in political power do not want to see proven. With her uncle away, Lyra is introduced to the mysterious Marisa Coulter (Nicole Kidman), a seemingly powerful woman with much sway both inside the Magisterium as well within Jordan College. Taking the young girl into her home under the pretense of world travel and scientific study, the child soon discovers this beautiful woman isn't all she appears to be. Mrs. Coulter, in fact, might be responsible for the rash of baffling child abductions. More, she is extremely interested in a gift bestowed upon Lyra before she left school, doing all she can to work her wiles to bring this intricate golden compass into her own possession. This item is an all-powerful device called an Alethiometer, and in the right hands it can tell people the truth about things. Now Lyra, with the aid of the secretive witch Serafina Pekkala (Eva Green), Texas cowboy airman Lee Scoresby (Sam Elliott), burly Gyptian Lord Faa (Jim Carter) and the gigantic armored bear Iorek Byrnison (voiced by Ian McKellen) is heading to Arctic to find Lord Asriel and save the stolen children. But Mrs. Coulter isn't far behind, and with the full fury of the Magisterium behind her she's intent on stopping the youngster's quest before she discovers the horrifying truth. Controversies surrounding the religious (or anti-religious, depending upon your point of view) implications of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy aside, director Chris Weitz's adaptation of The Golden Compass is a definite mixed bag. At times this film soars to the heavens like Scoresby's airship, other times it crashes to earth like a wilting flower unable to find the sun. The filmmaker can never find a consistent tone or create an exhilarating enough momentum to keep things satisfying. Yet for every disappointing turn there is a sequence of unparalleled majesty, and even though the final taste left by the picture is decidedly bittersweet my interest is piqued just enough to wonder where things are going to go next. Granted, I've never read the author's acclaimed novels, so the final outcome between this battle between the forces of humanistic free will and rigidly dogmatic fundamentalism is one I'm curious to see play out. Not that I'm probably going to get the opportunity. New Line isn't going to finance two more adaptations if this one isn't a smash, and considering Pullman's trilogy doesn't quite have the same pedigree of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis or J.K. Rowling's set of fantastical tales I seriously doubt people are going to turn out in quite the same numbers at the multiplex. And unfortunately, I can't really blame them. Much of Weitz's script is unfocused, the filmmaker cramming as much exposition into each frame as he can trying to keep his running time just under two hours. But there's too much here, too many characters, cultures, scientific marvels and spiritual miracles to keep track of without a bit more in the way of explanation. People fly in from nowhere, say a few important lines and then disappear once more without a trace. All the while little Lyra is supposed to absorb all they have to offer blindly without taking the time to ponder the consequences, making friends and enemies so quickly if you blink she's probably got three more of each by the time you've reopened your eyes. But when The Golden Compass works it does so magically. A brutishly exciting sequence amongst the world of the armored bears is positively breathtaking, while an early intimate encounter between our hero and the enigmatic Mrs. Coulter is so icily eerie the hair on my arms literally stood on end. There's also a great bit of suspenseful action at a Magisterium stronghold between Lyra and a group of scientists, the resulting escape into the snow as thrilling a bit filmmaking as any I've seen this year. If only it all held together just tiny bit better. This is a movie simply begging for another 20 or so minutes, yearning for the director to have slowed the momentum down and taken a little extra time to flesh out and craft his characters. There is also something almost arrogant about the way Weitz chooses to end his story with a cliffhanger almost as jarring and infuriating as the one found at the tail end of Back to the Future, Part II, things so literally up in the air I actually wanted to scream in disgust. The acting is universally solid, with both Green and Kidman the stand-outs. Best of all is young Richards, the newcomer impressively carrying the film atop her diminutive shoulders delivering a stimulating and confident performance far beyond her microscopic years. Technically Weitz hits the rights notes, his visual wizards creating a world of talking animals and surrealistic vistas as scrumptious and as beautiful as any to grace the screen since Peter Jackson brought The Lord of the Rings to such visionary life. I just wish the movie all of this lived in was more deserving of their combined talents. While I'm curious to see more I'll probably just order Pullman's novels from Amazon and call it a day. Filled with more than a few delights here and there, overall The Golden Compass just doesn't make the grade, the whole enterprise lost in a frozen wilderness of maddening disillusionment it just can't recover from. Courtesy of moviefreak.com. |
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