Arresting ... Nicole Kidman in The Golden Compass
It's always interesting to watch Hollywood's less-than-subtle efforts to shoehorn available content into the blockbusting movie spectacular that it's looking for, and The Golden Compass seems to be a prime example.
While Peter Jackson changed only those aspects of the Lord of the Rings that would have made filming awkward or impossible, Chris Weitz has happily excised Philip Pullman's anti-Catholic polemic from The Golden Compass in an apparent effort to avoid upsetting the US religious right. The critics, unfortunately for New Line, don't always buy it, with some even thinking that the film lacks heart and soul.
"The talented writer/director of About A Boy has made something humourlessly faithful to the book's events, but without its feeling," writes Empire's Olly Richards. "If you have favourite moments then rest assured they are here in some form - but they will only match the fantasies in your head if you are a mildly depressed Belgian accountant."
"[The Golden Compass] reveals all sorts of hidden truths, but it's hopeless when it comes to directions," writes James Christopher in the Times. "You need proper charts, a year's supply of baked beans, and Sir Ernest Shackleton if you've got any hope of finding the plot."
However, Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times admires what he calls a "wonderfully good-looking movie, with exciting passages and a captivating heroine in Lyra". He adds: "The controversy surrounding it obscures its function as a splendid entertainment."
And our own Peter Bradshaw is even more fulsome in his praise, especially with regard to the performance of Nicole Kidman as the devious Mrs Coulter. "Her glamorous and arresting turn is what gives the zip and the swish to the story as it powers along," he writes. "You can hear the faint crackle of her stockings as she sashays threateningly on to the screen, an arresting mixture of Darth Vader and Veronica Lake."
So all in all, a mixed response to this first in a planned trilogy of movies. What did you think? Is The Golden Compass the perfect festive fantasy spectacular? Or does it resemble one of the dead-eyed, daemonless unfortunates created by the movie's evil Magisterium?
