The Golden Compass

a movie review

The Golden Compass is one of the much awaited films in 2007. The trailer is definitely overwhelming especially if you are a fan of Nicole Kidman (Mrs. Cutler in the story) and Philip Pullman (the author of this famous book). Like many other, movie buffs, film critiques and book worms I have great expectations for the movie. I had so much hope that Chris Weitz (writer and director of the screenplay) would break history with his script and direction of the movie. Sadly, the screenplay didn’t even reach one third of my expectation. Weitz was not able to give justice to the work of Pullman. The film failed miserably to deliver any semblance of the author's story. The film was not able to deliver the most important points sighted in the book. Also, the abrupt shifts in the movie confused viewers regarding the message embedded in the screenplay.

If we separate the book from the entity of the screenplay, the movie will fail to stand on its own. Although, its cinematography is certainly commendable, the totality of its content is execrable. The story was truncated beyond the necessity involved in translating a book to film, the intricacies of the characters (especially Lyra) were swept over with a series of single scene expositions that do not readily allow viewers to explore the depth of each pesrona. Despite the talents of all the actors involved the direction of Weitz failed to show his audience the connection of one character to another.

All in all in a scale of 1 – 10, 1 being the lowest and ten being the highest, I’m giving the movie a rating of 2. A point goes to the cinematography and another point goes to Wietz for his efforts.

At the moment, it is one of the most disappointing films I have seen this year.