Ryan McNeil
Quite often when I finish watching a movie based on a book, I find myself wanting to read the source material. This is quite true in the case of THE GOLDEN COMPASS, since I found the movie adaptation to be one massive, glorious, mess.
I’m a pretty smart guy, but I swear the counter on my DVD player reached the one hour mark and I still had no clue what the heck the movie was supposed to be about. The first half of the movie was chocked full of abstract ideas like daemons, dust, alitheometers, and Magisteriums. If I didn’t know any better, I’d swear that George Lucas wrote the script.
The movie is supposed to be a fantasy film meant for family audiences, trying to tap into the same sort of audiences that flocked to the Narnia movies. If that was the intention, then the producing team really lost sight of the ball, since I couldn’t help but feel that the movie never came close to achieving the wonder and enchantment of either of the Narnia movies. Heck, even the lackluster ERAGON movie ran circles around this dullard. The movie won an Oscar for its visual effects, which are indeed eye-catching, but lost my interest quickly since so much of it is CG.
The movie is based on a series of books by Philip Pullman, though the story told here is rather different than the one Pullman wrote. The book, the first in a trilogy, actually takes a not-so-subtle stance against organized religion. When it came time to adapt the story for the movie, most of the anti-religious stance was removed (if you’re looking for them, you’ll notice that a tone or two remains). By taking out the central vein of the story, what we get is a rather vague and toothless plot.
Oh, and best of all – Warner was hoping this movie would do well enough to raise demand for the rest of the trilogy, so the ending of the film is very inconclusive. So yeah…in short…I wasn’t a fan.
While I enjoyed ‘His Dark Materials,’ I absolutely agree with your assessment of the movie. It was a mess. A mess with a bad open ending. I kind of hope that they don’t even make the next two.
I think the shame of Hollywood is they are always trying to capitalize on other’s success. When I saw previews for The Golden Compass and Stardust – I immediately thought of Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings and Narnia – and was immediately not interested in them. After hearing positive things about Stardust on another movie blog – I gave it a shot and wished I didn’t. So, The Golden Compass stands a tiny chance of making it into one of my movie watching binges.
I just wish Hollywood would say “good for those other movies” and try something else – but if money is pouring in for the “other movies” – I get the feeling that that won’t be happening any time soon. Such a shame…
I’ll agree that the movie is a mess. I didn’t love it. I also didn’t hate it. It fell into that tragic middle ground where it has no effect on your life whatsoever and morphs into something one-hundred percent forgettable.
Scott
he-shot-cyrus.blogspot.com
Charlie… It’s the age old Hollywood formula right? If a movie just made mad loot, a bunch of ugly cousins are bound to follow (eg. GLADIATOR’S success landed us ALEXANDER and TROY). One of these days the suits will learn.
Gringo… “Forgettable” indeed! Had I waited a few more months, maybe this one would have landed on that top five list I posted a while back about my top five most forgettable movies!
I’m pretty much with Scott – I didn’t think it was great or terrible. And as for the ending, I find it kinda funny that it got so much flak, considering that the first LOTR ended in much the same fashion (though I understand a lot of the flak came from how differently the movie ended as opposed to the book). I might like to read the books someday, though, as I’m sure to love what Pullman has to say.