Movie Review - The Golden Compass

It gets 1 for the visuals alone. Yes it looks pretty but pretty alone isn't enough to carry a story this complicated. We get the tiny explanation at the start which is practically useless. This film was made for those who have read the book, which I haven't. I found the film incredibly inaccessible to me. It's too long winded, far too self important and self indulgent. It requires a narrator and I found myself getting bored after less than 30 minutes (less than 1/3 of the way through). The film didn't hold my attention very well (it'd struggle to find an audience amongst children, I'm unsure who the target demographic actually are) and I frequently found my attention waning.

I didn't care about any of the characters or the plot at all, the film was that interesting (ie:- not at all). I won't try to explain the plot (as I didn't really understand much of it) other than to say it seems to follow the voyage of a girl and people trying to discover a path from their realm into alternate realities & others trying to stop them doing that. None of the characters were compelling enough to pique my interest, likewise the animal companions. They might be the "oh-ah" factor for kids but they had no substance and their shape changing abilities weren't explained, neither was why they were with the people they were with.

All the locations and characters seem to be very tenuously linked together and are very much a mish-mash of ideas that don't quite fit or work or ring true. The book itself must seem like someone took 10 different fantasy books, cut all the pages out, threw them in the air and picked random pages up and glued those together calling it their book. A hotch-potch. But botched. I can see this boring most of the people who go to watch it with their expectations from the trailer being dashed. Parents taking kids might find they have to leave before 40 minutes have passed, they won't be able to pay attention to it.

Far too complex for it's own good. It's like trying to watch Dune for the 1st time or Blade Runner without the voice over for the 1st time. But not as interesting. Wait for the DVD release. You won't get a refund if your kids are bored by the film at the cinema. I'd recommend Stardust. It's a better film & easier to watch.