The Golden Compass

S

Sad Max

Artful Dodger
Saw it tonight at the Egyptian.

I haven't read the books, and got that same feeling I have while watching Harry Potter movies - there is probably a lot that isn't making it (and can't realistically make it) to the screen.

It's well cast; the Magisterium players are suitably slimy and haughty and threatening (can't go too far wrong with Derek Jacobi and Christopher Lee and Simon McBurney) and Dakota Blue Richards carries the heroine role pretty well. And of course you can't go too far wrong with Sir Ian McKellan and Ian McShane and Sam Elliot, either...

It's visually a lot of fun; they went for that painterly hazy golden-light-suffused look, much of the time, and the technology for the most part looks good, too. A very storybook feeling, overall.

Nicole Kidman is a total ice queen. Big surprise, there...

The creature animation for the daemons is really top notch. There will probably be some kind of special technical Academy Award (tm) for Best Cinematic Achievement in Fur, or whatever...and Pantalaimon really comes across as a character with very real emotions; I wonder if they did facial mocap on Freddy Highmore to translate the performance...

Thumbs up for Art Direction, score (although the Kate Bush finale song made my ears bleed), lots of very nice character performances and quite a lot of really tasty digital character work.

Thumbs down for periods of high-intensity-information-cram, which I guess is unavoidable when you're jamming a novel into 114 minutes of screen time.

Probably a better kids' movie than grown-up movie, but a fun expenditure of 114 minutes of your life.

I'll check out the sequels once they come out.
 
i want to see this. it looks good. i've never read the books either. the thing that honestly draws me to seeing this movie other than the special effects, and what seems to be a cool story is to see Daniel Craig, and Eva Green in the movie. I'm a big fan of Craig's since Layer Cake, and Casino Royale.
 
I was disappointed. Thought it failed on a lot of levels. Nothing seemed to be set up right, muddled story, and worst of all, really bad oral hygiene on the part of those two little kids. With all the digital technology, can't they figure out how to make white teeth? And that wedge faced little boy wasn't exactly easy on the eyes. His face looked like it'd been on one of those "Right Stuff" astronaut centrifuge things for about three months. I renamed him "Yeager".

I did like that initial scene with the polar bear in the alley. He was imposing, tragic, and scary.

I thought Nicole Kidman looked pretty good though. My dad said she looked terrible--like too much plastic surgery. What'd you guys think? I think she's still got the goods.
 
Was this supposed to be ...Narnia big for them? It has made over 90 million bucks so far, so it may pull even or make a profit once it hits the rental market.

It has already made half what it costs in just over a week...but that does include foreign box office.
 
brianluce said:
worst of all, really bad oral hygiene on the part of those two little kids. With all the digital technology, can't they figure out how to make white teeth?
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They're British.

brianluce said:
I did like that initial scene with the polar bear in the alley. He was imposing, tragic, and scary.
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That was good stuff.

brianluce said:
I thought Nicole Kidman looked pretty good though. My dad said she looked terrible--like too much plastic surgery. What'd you guys think? I think she's still got the goods.
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Kidman is a total ice queen. Never liked her.
 
DeSica said:
Was this supposed to be ...Narnia big for them? It has made over 90 million bucks so far, so it may pull even or make a profit once it hits the rental market.

It has already made half what it costs in just over a week...but that does include foreign box office.
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They probably spent close to 300 million on this thing once you factor in advertising. Not to mention the money they were anticipating from sequels, which may not happen now, and merchandising. They invested a lot in this film and it's not going to come close to meeting their highest expectations. They'll be in the red for a good while with this, if they ever get out of it.
 
One strange thing about this movie is that the advertising and the first 20 minutes set up Daniel Craig a central character. Then, POOF! he vanished! And we got Yeager, Gentle Ben, and Yellow Tooth. WTF?
 
Batutta said:
They probably spent close to 300 million on this thing once you factor in advertising. Not to mention the money they were anticipating from sequels, which may not happen now, and merchandising. They invested a lot in this film and it's not going to come close to meeting their highest expectations. They'll be in the red for a good while with this, if they ever get out of it.
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I just read that they had already sold the foreign distribution rights to help finance the movie, so they really only made just over 40 million bucks so far,and the exhibitor takes a cut of that...

I also read somewhere that they had high hopes for this, because New Line had a couple of expensive flops previous to the release of this film...

...what were they?
 
This movie... was absolutely... terrible.

One of the worst movies I have ever seen. Maybe the worst big-budget movie I have ever seen. One hour into this film and I still had no idea what it was about. There was no driving force - no place for anyone to go. Everybody was just wandering around, wondering what the hell the migiligajetsetter was (or whatever the compass is called). The main girl was completely uninteresting. And the character they rested the whole franchise on - the polar bear - was only mildly interesting to say the least! Nothing really made sense, even after borifying the movie with three times as much explanation as similar films. I guess the bulk of the film's budget went into making all those CGI animals. I'm sitting there looking at these fake animals, in most cases the size of a bird, and thinking, "whose idea was this to spend 100 million dollars on fake animals that add nothing to the story?" I mean I know that they were *supposed* to add something to the story - but they didn't - at all! They just got in the way. The movie would've been the exact same movie had they ditched all those stupid animals and just had the polar bear. Anyway, I'm angry cause I actually wasted my time on this film. I have only Lord of The Rings and Harry Potter to blame for this. (by the way, there were SEVEN NEW FANTASY FILM trailers played before the film)
 
c.g._eads said:
This movie... was absolutely... terrible.

One of the worst movies I have ever seen. Maybe the worst big-budget movie I have ever seen. One hour into this film and I still had no idea what it was about. .... I guess the bulk of the film's budget went into making all those CGI animals. I'm sitting there looking at these fake animals, in most cases the size of a bird, and thinking, "whose idea was this to spend 100 million dollars on fake animals that add nothing to the story?" I mean I know that they were *supposed* to add something to the story - but they didn't - at all! They just got in the way. The movie would've been the exact same movie had they ditched all those stupid animals and just had the polar bear.
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Funny you mention that...

In an interiew for December's GQ, there is a little story about Daniel Craig having been an actor that Weitz wanted for the film, but couldn't find room for in the budget, so they didn't approach him. It ended up that he did the film because someone knew Craig to be a huge fan of the material and word got to him...

Imagine... not enough money for the real actors you want because someone is etch-a-sketching the billionth CGI animal.
 
Man, what a piece of crap this was. I think the reviewers were far too kind. The story was terrible, devoid of any dramatic tension. The lead character does nothing for the first hour except be dragged around. The stakes were unclear. The fantasy world felt half realized. The villains weren't the least bit interesting. And in the end, not much was accomplished, since they were counting on making a series out of this lame material. This movie tanked because it deserved to tank. Weitz should go back to making romantic comedies.
 
it was weak. I agree with your review Batutta, the story suffered and really i think there was potential, especially with the budget they had. I think that "battle" at the end was the most un-epic thing i've ever seen, i had no emotional contact to any of the characters (good or bad) involved. Mostly just boredom.
 
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