| Tuesday, 11 December 2007 |
| the golden compass |
'The Golden Compass' felt like a cross between the Harry Potter and the Lord of the Rings movies. It attempted to be a massive epic, just like LOTR, but unfortunately, felt more similar to the slightly kiddish Harry Potter movies. In its attempt to straddle between being either type of film, it led to the film sorely lacking in both emotional gravitas (of an epic) and wide-eye wonder (of a kid film) - the unfortunate result being a film that was neither here nor there.
Nonetheless, it was still an enjoyable film to watch.
The cast was excellent. Nicole Kidman was perfect as Mrs Coulter (my favourite character from the books because she was so fascinating!), in all her icy, sinister glory. If there was anyone who had the talents to portray this conflicted character, it would be her.
Dakota Blue Richards was surprisingly good as well, contrary to what some of my friends had said of her acting based on trailer material. She played the tom-boyish Lyra with appropriate spunk! Much better than sugar coating it with icky cutesy squeakiness, which made her performance so so refreshing.
Other well casted actors (that were, unfortunately, woefully underused) included Daniel Craig as the imperious Lord Asriel, Eva Green as the bewitching witch queen, Serafina Pekkela, Freddie Highmore and Ian McKellen as the voices of Pantalaimon (Lyra's deamon) and bear King Iorek Brynison respectively and Sam Elliot as the Texan aeronaut Lee Scoresby.
The animation, well sufficiently good, was sadly, not too realistic. The special effects still looked faked - perhaps it was an attempt to make it all look fantastical, but compared to those seen in other fantasy flicks like LOTR, Narnia and Harry Potter, which managed to be BOTH fantastical and realistic, the special effects here were quite disappointing.
It made the film feel rather detached. On top of this, is the problem that the flim suffers in terms of pacing. It feels like the film has too much to tell, but can't really decide what it wants to focus on and as a results, ends up diluting the message that the original novels had.
It was just too much, too many and would have left many viewers rather flummoxed at the whole plot. Though having read the books myself, I can tell you that feeling flummoxed while attempting to appreciate 'His Dark Materials' is perfectly, utterly normal.
Oh and the ending was rather abrupt too. I felt that if they bothered to keep it as the original ending in the novels, the film would be so much better and tragic.
I read Phillip Pullman's 'His Dark Materials' Trilogy when I was in J1. My first impression of the trilogy was that it was incredibly different from the epic opus that was the Lord of the Rings, the religious metaphoric works of the Chronicles of Narnia, and the more believable world of Harry Potter.
The writing style was quite unlike the legendary sweeping style used by Tolkien, or the fairy tale language employed by C.S Lewis. It was also different from the more colloquial and accessible style used by Rowling. Pullman's style was very dark and sinister and often clinical. It had the impression of being no nonsense, and very straight to the point, which made the read so unique.
Fantasy stories all have certain hidden messages in them. Here was a trilogy that attempted to link fantasy with religion and even science. It featured talk on metaphysics, on cross dimensional universes, on the concept of Sin and individual versus religious freedom. It was an incredibly complex book.
When I read in, I felt like all the fantastic elements, like flying witches, talking amoured Polar Bears, water faring gypsies, and animal manifestations of your souls were just facades of an even greater cause, because the trilogy had so much more lessons and messages to share. So if you enjoy the movie, go read the books. Its probably infinitely better.
All in all, despite its flaws, 'The Golden Compass' is still a good movie. Go watch it because there's probably no other film available right now worth watching but this.
P.S: one side effect of the film is that it makes you imagine that you have your very own deamon sitting next to you. Mine, a large giant sheep named Darmacus, is sitting next to me right now. She thinks I'm exceedingly bored for doing this, which might be true, only I refuse to admit that.Labels: literature, movie |
posted by voldemort33 @ 10:28  |
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