Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2141 in DVD
• Released on: 2008-04-28
• Rating: Parental Guidance
• Format: PAL
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 109 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
Perhaps it didn’t ignite the box office in quite the way it’d been hoped, but that’s little reason to pass over the qualities of The Golden Compass now it arrives on DVD. Based on the Phillip Pullman novel His Dark Materials--itself the start of the Northern Lights trilogy, the film isn’t without a few problems, but emerges as a quality adaptation.

And you certainly can’t fault The Golden Compass for sheer ambition. The story, for those new to the series, is primarily that of 12-year old Lyra, who is in search of her friend who has been kidnapped. Naturally, this proves to be quite a challenging adventure, not least because it’s through Pullman’s vividly imagined world, crossing dimensions as Lyra travels. The film, while toning down and fiddling with some elements of the source material, stays quite close to the book, and it proves to be a good, if not Lord Of The Rings-standard, adaptation.

What helps The Golden Compass, on top of the strong effects work and scope of the production, is a solid cast, featuring the likes of Daniel Craig, Nicole Kidman and Dakota Blue Richards. And it certainly whets the appetite for the next instalment in the series. Whether the muted box office returns put pay to that remains to be seen: for now, at least, The Golden Compass is a good, solid family movie that’s easy to enjoy. --Jon Foster

DVD Description
Based on Philip Pullman's acclaimed His Dark Materials trilogy of books, The Golden Compass follows the epic adventure of Lyra through this dimension-crossing family movie.

Synopsis
THE GOLDEN COMPASS is an adaptation of the first book in the beloved but controversial fantasy series by Phillip Pullman. The story opens with Lyra Belacqua (Dakota Blue Richards) an orphan girl who lives in an alternate world that is similar to earth, but where people's souls exist outside of their bodies in animal form. The people are ruled by a shadowy and oppressive council known as the Magisterium, which is doing it's best to keep everyone from getting information about what is called 'Dust.' Lyra's Uncle Asriel (Daniel Craig) has been researching Dust, and he has seen to it that Lyra is given safe shelter at Jordan College. But when the visiting Mrs. Coulter (Nicole Kidman) arrives, she asks Lyra to accompany her on a trip to the North to meet the Panserbjorne, a race of armoured bears. Before Lyra leaves, the Headmaster gives her a golden compass, a device which only she can read, and from which she can intuit the truth. Lyra leaves with Mrs. Coulter, but when she learns that her friends have been kidnapped by 'Gobblers' she heads out to find them, and soon joins forces with the nomadic Gyptians, some witches, and an armoured bear called Iorek Byrnison (voice by Ian McKellen). Lyra finds her friends, and so discovers the evil plans the Magisterium has cooked up for the world's children. By the film's end, she has vowed to track down her Uncle Asriel, and to discover the true power of Dust.


Hollywood had a tricky time of taming this tale, as Pullman's books portray religion - the Catholic Church in particular - in a less than flattering light. The film version carefully steers clear of these themes, and instead puts its enormous budget into creating visually stunning effects. While fans of the books may find fault with this streamlined version, children are sure to revel in the many talking animals and whimsical airships.

Customer Reviews

Far from golden
Watching the first adaptation of Philip Pullman's excellent trilogy is one part admiration and two parts disappointment. First off, you have to admire the courage of director Chris Weitz, who took in the scope and ambition of these novels, stepped forward from the pack and bravely took the wheel of this vehicle into his hands. Unfortunately, once we were done patting him on the back for that, there's no avoiding the bitter disappointment of realising that our drive has bitten off far more than his ability can chew, and we are being catapulted, arms up and screaming, off of the road.
The truth is that there is so much wrong with this movie that its hard to keep your chin up for it. First off, Ian "if its fantasy I'm compulsory" Mckellen is disgracefully miscast as key character, Iorek Brynison. As Pullman presented him, Iorek is a young, energetic prince that has lost his way, desperately in need of the inadvertent guidance Lyra (our heroine) offers. Mckellen (inevitably) presents Iorek as an aging, disposed king looking to reclaim his long-lost kingdom. This is far enough off the mark to make the character practically unrecognisable to fans of the book (or at least to me) though this of course will not be an issue for those coming to the film without preconceptions.
Secondly, the script is just awful. Hollywood fat-cats only know how several previous rewrites were discarded in favour of this nonsense. Granted, there are a sea of concepts to convey, but so much of the dialogue is descriptive that any attempt to suspend disbelief is broken long before it can gather steam. For example, Lyra bangs her knee and her daemon, Pantalaimon, protests "Careful Lyra, Don't you know that if you get hurt, I hurt too!" Of course she bloody knows! She's twelve years old!! Is this the first time she's experienced any sensory perception whatsoever!!? honestly. This sort of thing could have been done so much more subtly and the film is so rife with similar examples that by the time two hours was through I was raw from it.
Needless to say this has a direct effect on the performances, which despite the talent on show are almost uniformly wooden and poor. The audience in the cinema were made so uncomfortable watching the cast wade through this verbal tripe that my first viewing of the second matrix film was brought to mind. The actors on the screen before you so clearly don't believe in their dialogue or environment that you are left with a brutally clear perception of a series of short set pieces. As the camera fades from each moment you can almost here the director screaming "Cut! Alright lets do it again." In short there is no fluidity at all and no possibility of getting swept along in the performances.
Finally, even the direction manages to strip Pullmans' world of much its grandeur and scope. You get no sense of the majesty, spritualism and influence of the witches (the actually well cast Eva Green is criminally underused as Witch-Queen Serefina Pekkela) and the set piece battles lack any urgency or sense of scale whatsoever. Remember when the orks marched on Helm's deep in the two towers? It was absolutely terrifying. I was crawling up my chair. Contrast that with the battle at the end of the Golden Compass and its easy to see how far this film has fallen from the required mark. The battle here lacks any sense of scale, importance or consequence. Worst of all the frame is so sparsely populated, driven and focussed that we are sadly given the sense that this is more of a mere skirmish, helping Lyra to escape. It looks like a fight in an alpine pub car park. Again, bitterly disappointing.
I won't even get started on the decision to play down the religious aspects or how on earth the producers intend to make this work in the second and third books where this emerges as the overriding drive of the plot. How on earth the death of god and the acsendancy of Metatron can be reinterpreted escapes me entirely. I sense an almighty fudge coming.
Its sad because there is otherwise much here to be admired. Lyra's world is for the briefest of moments through out the film beautifully realised and the animation of the daemons at least is a triumph. There's no doubting the effort. Casting man of the moment Daniel Craig was also a clever decision and hopefully he and Nicole Kidman can combine for something of a success story in the second and third films- assuming they are ever made.
The truth is that this film has been on it way for years, riding a fever pitch of anticipation, and there is no hiding the sadness and disillusionment of the Pullman faithful to see what has become of the first instalment. Forget lord of the rings- think phantom menace. And how sorry I am to say so.

Missed opportunity
Reviewing a film when you've read the book is always hard. Really a film should be judged on its own merits - does it work as a film - and not on how well it compares with the original book. Hard though that is to do, my view would be that this would be an unsatisfactory film even without taking account of its shortcomings as an adaptation. The acting is acceptable, the effects ok but nothing special, but I'm really not sure that the story, told this way, makes sense. Shorn of all its meaning, and presented as a simple 'and then and then and then' narrative it even manages to be something which the original novels could never be accused of - boring.

My advice? Don't waste your time and money. If you haven't already read the books, they would be a better investment. If you have, the film is likely to be an unsatisfactory and frustrating experience.

a lesson to learn before book 2 reaches the screen
Only one comment. The producers and directors of this series need to talk to Peter Jackson urgently about how to bring a long complex and enthralling trilogy to the screen. On the evidence of the first instalment the current team have only the sketchiest idea of how it's done which is a great shame as the books are outstanding and deserve the same kind of attention to detail and characterisation, as well as a faithful adaptation of the plot! that made the Lord of the Rings trilogy so fantastic. If you haven't read the books you won't know what you're missing so give it ago or better yet read the books! If you have read them then don't bother watching this film as it will just frustrate and disappoint