The Golden Compass

A man hates Christians and decides to write a book to give an allegory expressing his hatred and facism which gets turned into a "movie" which was one of the most epically bashed films of all time. Critics almost universally destroyed this waste of anyone's time looking for something that might entertain. 2 hours of static would garner more love. Pretentious and boring x100. Bleh.

I was all about "James Bond Goes to Narnia," like I told my wife many times when it was released (in jest of course; while Daniel Craig does get into a fight in this movie, he is most certainly not playing James Bond here and in fact is a bit of a minor if important character). I hadn't read the book and was glad for that; I knew of some of the controversies surrounding the stories and was excited to see what they did with the film version. Visually it is stunning; like Jules Verne brought to life. Story and pacing-wise it just stinks the big one. Tension in the film is pretty much non-existent and it's hard to even like the main character much. I hate to say that it seems like they had a lot of potential going for this movie but wanted to do a quick cash-in on the Narnia/Harry Potter craze, but it seems like they had a lot of potential going for this movie but wanted to do a quick cash-in on the Narnia/Harry Potter craze. Disappointing.

I thought this was a good movie. I haven't read the book yet, but I did think it was an entertaining movie. There are precious few adventure movies with girls in the lead and I enjoyed this one. Is it perfect, no. But I watched this with my teenage daughter, and since we're both fantasy genre fans we were hoping for a sequel and were disappointed one wasn't made. I'd suggest just enjoy the movie for what it is and stop comparing it to Harry Potter, or LOTR and enjoy seeing a girl lead the action.