The Golden Compass - Review

Posted: Mon Apr 13, 2009 12:09 am

The Golden Compass
Rating = 7

From what I understand, people who have read the book didn't much care for the movie version. That's why I never try to compare a movie to a book, if I can help it.

Since I hadn't read the book, it was real easy here. ...and I enjoyed what I saw. I won't get into a detailed synopsis on this one and it's really rather complicated and you can click the film title above to get the IMDB page anyway. Basically, it takes place in a parallel universe where a person maintains their soul in an animal companion rather than within themselves. This companion is known as a Daemon - not to be confused with a real Demon, which some apparently confused religious fanatics took exception to when the movie first came out. The story centers around a girl on a grand adventure with a golden compass which can answer questions and predict the future.

The special effects where awesome, the characters were believable, and the story moved along at an extremely brisk pace. There's a whole lot of story here and the movie could easily have been made way too long or the story sliced up so much as to look like a real hack job. Kudos to the film makers for being able to squeeze everything into it's current time constraints and not make it feel like a rush job. You do have to pay attention, though ...every scene is important and, if you miss a few, you may get lost.

Recommendation - If you've read the book, you'll be disappointed from what I've heard. But, if you haven't and you like fantasy films, this one is certainly worth seeing.