DVD Review: The Golden Compass

Last week I've read it over Towleroad that a new children's book And Tango Makes Three is out the market depicting a homosexual penguin couple raising a child. The book made the American Library Association's list of most objected list of books because "Young children will believe that homosexuality is a lifestyle that is acceptable." Also on the list of the most objected books are Maya Angelou's memoir I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, in which the author writes of being raped as a young girl; Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, long attacked for alleged racism; and Philip Pullman's The Golden Compass, an anti-religious work in which a former nun says: "The Christian religion is a very powerful and convincing mistake." Golden Compass depicting Christian religion as a mistake? I must rent it. (Sorry, it's just people has been using religion to make my life miserable and I feel good when somebody else bash it for a change.)

The Golden Compass is about a magical fantastic world where they found a golden substance called Dust that will grant free will coming from a totally separate world. This finding contradicts with everything the Magisterium has taught. Everyone in this world has an animal companion (or daemons) which is actually the manifestation of their soul. In an effort to prevent people of having free will, the Magisterium is kidnapping children and separate them will their souls.

Our protagonist is a 12 year-old girl named Lyra. Traveling north to find her missing friend. She was given a Golden Compass which is a strange device used for her to read the truth. With the help of this device, she enlisted a group of mystical creatures and interesting characters who helps her to fight back the evil Magisterium.

What I like about the movie is the heavy symbolism and different analogies. As a child their souls are not yet settled and can change into different forms. Lyra's daemons can change into a cat, a flying insect or a mouse or an ermine. It reflects the possibilities children can attain and these possibilities or roles in the society get affixed when they grow up. The form of the daemon also reflects the person's personality, a soldier's daemon might be a dog to reflect his loyalty, a timid person's daemon might be a mouse, etc. Of course, there's also the theme of "The truth will set you free" represented by the compass.

Nicole Kidman is absolutely stunning in the movie. No matter what character she's portraying, she's got that classic look. Eva Green is also really beautiful as Serafina Pekkala the queen witch. The special effects are great, all the talking animals and armored bears are all fantastic. But just like every first installment of some magical trilogy, there are too many background stories to introduce and not enough action. It is more like a TV series than an actual movie. There are no news of a sequel being filmed yet, so we'll see what happens. I'm very interested to get the books though. C+