Allow me to introduce you to The Golden Compass, a film which straddles the fine line between ridiculous and brilliant. For me the scales were tipped decidedly toward ridiculous when the closing titles began and a slow, meandering ballad about the main character faded in: "Lyra, Lyra...her soul walks beside her, an army stands behind her...Lyra, Lyra." The song, entitled "Lyra" and sung by Kate Bush, is a well-meaning ode to the importance of the story's main character, but its bewildering execution leaves you wanting to laugh (or, in my case, actually laughing). The same could be said about the film that it follows.
The movie adaptation, particularly of a fantasy novel, is a strange beast, and I think it's fair to say that after over 100 years, Hollywood is still trying to figure out how to treat it right. Perhaps even trickier is the fantasy series (such as Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials series), in which the livelihood of future films and the potential for major box office dollars rest upon the palatability of the crucial first film. It should come as no big surprise that more popular series are among the genre's most notable successes. The ongoing Harry Potter franchise or The Lord of the Rings trilogy, for example, were able to leave fans of the original material generally excited and itching for more, and neither spent much time or energy explaining how their worlds were different from our own. The Golden Compass is the first installment of a potential His Dark Materials trilogy, and if the series is going to live through its completion, movie number one would have done well to explain a little less and show a little more.
While I haven't read The Golden Compass (or any of the His Dark Materials books) myself, the world depicted in the movie is clearly the invention of a brilliant mind. Furthermore, the actors in the film were hardly objectionable - Daniel Craig is stately, Nicole Kidman is vicious, Sam Elliot is droll, and star Dakota Blue Richards seems just the right blend of precious and precocious. The visual effects were varied and truly stunning, defining entire scenes and characters such as the terrifying "ice bears" and the "demons" that walk beside each human. Some adaptations with so much going for them are counted as gems, even if fans of the original books are disappointed by liberties taken and scenes omitted. But one needn't be a literary scholar or rabid Philip Pullman fan to be irked by the plotline of this particular novel-to-screen transition.
The world of The Golden Compass is complex, and the film takes every opportunity to remind us of it. New races of people appear around every corner, and each time we're reminded which race they belong to. Are they Gyptians? Are they Witches? Who is that guy again? Why are children's demon's different from adults' ? What's going to happen next? Issues that the books' author likely devoted chapters to get addressed via hastily inserted lines of dialogue. Like a buoy thrown in to make sure we're up to speed (rather then leave us to fend for ourselves), this hand-holding bothers me a little more each time I think about it.
Ultimately, The Golden Compass leaves one feeling exhilarated and confused, entertained and patronized. During a thrilling ice bear fight, the witty banter exchanged by the bears is eye-rollingly trite. Just as protagonist Lyra is learning to decode the secrets of the titular Golden Compass, Eva Green comes flying in on a broomstick. It's enough to make a film critic want to tear her hair out at the prospect of what could have been if only a bit more care had been taken in the cutting room and a little more trust had been granted us by the script. See the film yourself, and maybe the scales will tip differently for you. Plus, you'll get to hear that hilarious song...Lyyyyra....Lyyra...
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