Moral Compass

I guess it wasn't that popular, but we really liked The Golden Compass. It certainly wasn't perfect, but it hit a very sweet spot. Of course, we're in the sweet spot as the audience. We've read and enjoyed all or part of the source trilogy, His Dark Materials, but we aren't rabid fans. So we come in well-disposed, we aren't mystified by some of the condensed exposition, but we don't freak out when details (or big chunks) are changed.

The film has a great look, very steampunk - Jordan College is a dream of an old English school, and when Mrs. Colter's airship lands ... well! The titular compass could have been a little more impressive, but it comes with a nice special effect that makes up for it.

Since everyone in the story's universe has an animal companion or soul, there are a lot of animated animals here. Mostly they come off very well, never cartoony. The worst I could say is that sometimes the motion capture showed, making the fighting bears, for instance, look like men in bear suits.

The cast is wonderful. Nicole Kidman does an amazing wicked stepmother-figure (in loco parentis, at least) as Mrs. Colter, beautiful, seductive, charming, and very cruel. Prof. Asriel is played by Daniel Craig, who hits it perfectly, but has all too few scenes. I can imagine Sean Connery in this tweedy yet adventurous role, so Craig makes perfect sense. Sam Elliot makes a mighty fine itinerant aereonaut. Ian McKellan as the voice of Iorek Byrneson, the armored bear, is as good as you'd imagine.

Best of all is the young star, Dakota Blue Richards, as Lyra Bellacqua. She is as brave, headstrong, decisive, loyal and trustworthy as I imagined.

The story concerns metaphysical dust, stolen children, souls and a conspiracy of the Magisterium to cover up this knowledge. In the books, this was clearly aimed at organized religion, and possibly the concept God itself. This gets dialed way back in the movie, basically censored. Still, all of that would have slowed the movie down a lot, and doesn't really become critical until the last book. Since it looks like the next two books won't be getting filmed, that's fine.

They did a nice job making this a standalone film while leaving the chance of sequels. I would really like to see the next two movies, with The Subtle Knife concerned with travel between the universes, and The Amber Spyglass showing the war in heaven - a CGI extravaganza. Well, that's not going to happen. Oh well, we're happy with what we got.