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"I'm buying the Blu-Ray after seeing it on HBO", I was so intrigued by this movie that I'm buying it in Blu-Ray. I think it's worth it. Even though I have not read the Pullman books, I agree with other reviewers that the story is about the power of free will over fascism. It is a much more spiritual story than many may perceive. No need to get too intellectual, though. The polar bear warriors are worth buying the movie, and that's all I need to say.

"Freud for kids, marred by a stereotype", I have no problem with a bit of a specific (*Lacanian*) strain of Freudian psychoanalytical theory invoked in cinema. Seems to me *the dust* denotes *object (petit) a* - *a* stands for *other* (Fr. autre). It is *the object-cause of desire*. The *object (petit) a* is actually both the cause of desire the final reserve of libido. Since it also denotes a surplus enjoyment (Fr. plus-de-jouir), it is no wonder that *Church*(at least officially) is against it. Not a big deal.

I have a problem though, as one blogger pointed out, with the *evil Russians* or *evil Tatars* who are portrayed running some kind of a nightmarish *kids-only Gulag* installation on Spitsbergen. You dress them all like Rasputin; let them speak a bit of Russian and voilà - ready-to-wear agent of evil. I mean, seriously enough already with stereotypes.


"A "Golden" Story with a Relevant Message", I've never read the original books by author Philip Pullman, but I heard much about them leading up to the release of this much anticipated film adaptation. One of the things I hate most about such pre-hype for a film like this is that you can't help but form biased opinions about the success or failure of the project even though you've yet to see it with your own eyes. Given that the original books were written as an expression of Mr. Pullman's atheist beliefs, which though I disagree with, I have the utmost respect for, and having heard that the movie had been changed to downplay that particular angle, I was afraid that what would be left would be a watered down, generic fantasy with a lot of special effects and action but little or no depth. So I'm happy to say that when I finally saw this film the other night, I was pleasantly surprised.

First off, one of the gripes I do have with the film is that I'm not sure that it ever really provides the audience with a full understanding of what's at stake. We quickly learn that on this world, daemons are living, physical manifestations of a person's soul that walk alongside their human counterparts, appearing in animal form. There is also reference to Dust, which is believed to connect this world with the many other parallel worlds out there, and which is somehow related to why a child's daemon can change form at will but an adult's cannot. Lord Asriel, played in the film by current James Bond star Daniel Craig, believes that he can use this discovery as a way to travel between worlds. Meanwhile, Mrs. Coulter, portrayed in a wonderfully scary way by Nicole Kidman, represents the Magisterium, an organization that seeks to, for some unexplained reason, control people through their beliefs. The Magisterium also has been kidnapping children in an evil plot involving the children's daemons. Lyra, portrayed by Dakota Blue Richards, is Lord Asriel's niece, an orphan being raised at Oxford, who is given a device which is capable of discerning the truth of things. Lyra, along with her alethiometer, or golden compass, proves to be a child prophesied long ago who will ultimately determine the future of everyone.

While I can sort of fill in the gaps on my own, I never felt satisfied that I had been given a firm explanation for the Magisterium and the full implications of their plan. I suspect that this is the point where the removal of any anti-religious content may have left a gap in the story, a missing piece that was left ambiguous rather than filling it with something contrived. That absence, along with parts of the story early on that felt a bit rushed, keep me from giving the story 5 stars. But it is beautiful visually, in some ways even more so than Lord of the Rings. The story is certainly more than exciting enough for the young and young at heart, and if you pay close attention, even with the missing allusions to the books original undercurrent, you can sense the message is still there, and I felt that was a very big plus.

I will definitely be looking forward to the anticipated second film in the trilogy, and I think once you've seen it, so will you.

- Gregory Bernard Banks, author of The Summoner, and other books

"I loved it", I loved this film. I just watched it and thought it was a great fantasy adventure and it's a great family film. "The Golden Compass" is about a young girl named Lara who lives in a magical world filled with animals that have demons in them and witches fly the dark sky and animals talk and pirates roam the sea. Lara meets a wicked blond woman played by Nicole Kidman who takes her back with her to her place. The woman traps Lara there and tries to get her to do what she wants. Lara is smart enough to figure out something is going on and escapes with her animal demon a cute cat. Lara meets some strange expectians on a ship and goes with them. Lara has the Golden Compass, something which Nicole wants. It can tell truth from lies and show Lara things. Lara protects it with her life. She meets a polar bear who is a warrior and he helps her. She travels on his back across the cold North, where polar bears roam and where they keep inoccent children at a horrible place where they try to seperate children from their animal demons. Lara finds this awful, since she believes they shouldn't do that. She tries to rescue the kids and animals and runs into trouble and Nicole. Nicole explains why they're hurting the kids but Lara refuses to listen to her until Nicole tells lara that she's her mother. Lara is shocked, but gets away at the end and destroys the place and frees the kids and a war goes on with the witches, polar bears and animals. Lara and her best friend go to free her father at the end and with some friends, save the day. I love this movie. It's very magical and cool. It's a great fantasy film. I love the special effects and the witches traveling through the night sky. So cool! I love Lara played by Dakota Blue Richards. I felt she was a strong female role model. She was a good person and a smart, amazing 12-year-old girl who was intelligent and talented and special. She believed in herself and wanted to help others and by doing so saved a lot of incoent people. Nicole Kidman was a witch, something which she is good at. She played a good witch much like Glenda in "Pratical Magic," but here she is like the Wicked Witch of the North in that the woman she plays is both coy and ugly and evil. She wants things to happen to kids that are wrong and it never explains why. Freddie Highmore voices an animal. I think it's Lara's demon but I can't be sure. Look, this movie isn't anti-relaglious or something. It has nothing to do with that. The story is fiction and fantasy and it's just like saying Harry Potter is evil or whatever. Everyone thinks this way. It's not true. Harry Potter and the Golden Compass are just fun and cool stories and not anti-that. So there. I loved this great movie and it's a good movie and it's called ACTING. I love Dakota Blue Richards, I felt she was the right one for this role.

"A Review For Those Not Familiar With The Book", As I am sure many people, I am not a part of the breed of fans that have read the book and then hastily decided to check out the film. In fact, until this film arose, I had never heard of anything-called "The Golden Compass" so it is quite an interesting film. After all a film that stars both Daniel Craig and the wonderful Nicole Kidman, regardless of whether I've read the book or not I was going to see this film.

I have to be perfectly honest and tell you that although it was a good bit of fun with a very out there premise. Set in an alternate universe where, rather than a persons soul being encapsulated within their body it manifests itself as an animal form outside the body known as Daemons. The main character Lyra is fascinated by a presentation she accidentally stumbles upon by her uncle Asriel about mysterious particles known as Dust, which is apparently a way of transporting between universes.

Her uncle is due to travel North in search of these particles, but holding no hope of going with him, she is asked to travel north with a very mysterious woman known only as Mrs. Coulter as her personal assistant. During that time, she comes into possession of the mysterious Golden Compass, which allows her to see all truths along with her companions also such as her Daemon and a large ferocious polar bear.

Even before its release, thanks to the oppressive Magisterium in the film. The Golden Compass brought in unwanted controversy as it was believed that the Magisterium was a religious undertone relating to the Catholic Church. I suppose really that unless your child is extremely intelligent, that controversy and "message" means pretty much nothing to them.

Due to it being a high budget fantasy film it required a lot of CGI and let me be honest and say, sometimes it worked and sometimes it did not. In one of the ways it did not, work was the attempting interaction between the actors and their chosen daemon. It was especially apparent when Kidman's character hit her daemon and then attempted to apologise by hugging it. The mix between reality and CGI did work, but the faults were noticeable, but it is passable due to what it did achieve. The fight scene between a King bear and Lyras polar bear companion was also another way in which the CGI worked very well. The look of the bears was spot on and quite realistic at some points the fighting was intense and very attractive.

One of the best parts of the whole thing was the superbly frightening acting by Nicole Kidman. Her role as Mrs. Couter was something to be experienced and she really plays the role of a manipulative evil "ice queen" of sorts very well. Daniel Craig, although not a particularly prominent role, still managed to make the movie special and hold my interest. After all, I could not expect anything less as he is one of the reasons I decided to watch this in the first place.

It was a wonderful fantasy film and about the only thing I have negative to say about it is in relation to the Daemons. From what I saw there seemed to be no explanation as to why the Daemons took the shape they did. Lyra's Daemon was that of a cat most of the time but took different shapes from time to time. Mrs. Couters Daemon was that of a golden monkey and Uncle Asriels was a tiger.

Other than that little discrepancy, there is honestly nothing to complain about with this picture.

Read this reviews before You buy...

"Golden Compass", I was disappointed compared to all the hype I heard before I watched this movie. Just another fantasy movie, nothing to jump up and down about. Good acting and special affects but that's all it has going for it.

"One change would have made it much better.", The Golden Compass was an imaginative and innovative book, inspiring novel viewpoints of personal spirituality, among other things. The plot and events are so complex that compressing it all into a single-sitting movie is ambitious. The elisions that the compression required make the action skip rather than flow. But it would be an entertaining watch, except for one flaw that can't be ignored: the unfortunate casting of the lead child actor. Nothing about her evokes the Lyra of the books. She is too pushy and aggressive. Her acting doesn't feel natural. Her appearance is also too pale and hard. It's not believable that she would inspire the loyalty and warmth and solicitude that the adult characters show in their reactions toward her.

The special effects are a consolation, especially the architecture.

"masterfully done movie of a modern classic", Philip Pullman's "His Dark Materials" trilogy (Golden Compass/Subtle Knife/Amber Spyglass) are some of my absolute favorite books in fantasy. I was extremely psyched when I heard that a movie would be made of the first book, but never got around to seeing it until it was out on DVD.

Lyra is a young orphan girl (roughly 11 or 12) who has been raised by the scholars at Jordan College in Oxford (similar to England). Lyra's world is very like our own, except for one distinct difference: people's souls, or daemons, can be found externally in the form of various animals. Lyra accidentally overhears her uncle Asriel, some Jordan College scholars, and a representative of the Magisterium talking about Dust. Dust seems to be a hot topic in her world - Lord Asriel is trying to find a way to get to parallel worlds to learn more about Dust; the Magisterium, with the aid of the mysterious Mrs. Coulter, is trying to suppress Dust; and children are going missing in freaky experiments involving Dust. When Lyra's friends Billy and Roger are taken, she sets off on an epic adventure to save them.

Overall, the movie stays very true to the original novel, and it's beautifully done. The special effects (flying witches, talking bears) are well done and not cheesy at all. The acting is superb and, in my opinion, the movie itself is excellent.

Some things could have been confusing for viewers not familiar with Pullman's trilogy. Daemons are sort of explained in the beginning, but in addition to being part of someone's soul, they're also a physical manifest of someone's personality, so the animals of the adults are very telling about their character. That's also the reason why the children's daemons keep shifting; their "permanent" personalities are still being formed. They're also very personal entities, which is why it freaks a person out when their daemon is handled by another person (and there's an unspoken taboo about it in Lyra's world, too). I know they can't put all of that in a movie, but those little tidbits, found in the book, are extremely helpful to understanding the movie.

I did wonder about the ending - they chose to end it on a hopeful note instead of the dark, dramatic one in the book. I had heard rumors that, depending on how well "Golden Compass" did, they weren't necessarily going to make the second movie, so the cliffhanger ending from the first book probably had to get shuffled aside. It certainly makes me curious about how they're going to handle it in a sequel.

There was a lot of fuss when this movie was released because the books are, in tone, fairly anti-religious. These books (and movie) are pretty dark with some heavy philosophical questions. They aren't intended for children necessarily, even though the protagonist is a child. (Which always makes me wonder why they're shelved in the children's section?!) However, Pullman doesn't pull out the heavy anti-religious stuff until book three, and I have to wonder how the script writers are going to handle it, because you can't really tweak it without changing the entire story line. But we don't have to worry about that for right now, since movie two hasn't even been released yet.

Overall, a great movie, beautifully done with a great cast. Definitely worth checking out, even if you've never read the books. If you're thinking of watching this with young children, definitely heed the PG-13 rating.

"The Golden Compass: A Great Movie! Can't wait for the sequel!", The Golden Compass is a great film that is based upon a awesome book trilogy. This film stars Nicole Kidman, Sam Elliot, Ian McKellen, Dakota Blue Richards, Daniel Craig, Philip Pullman, and Ian McShane.

While some of you may disagree with me, I liked this movie better than Narnia. There is supposed to be a sequel coming out 2009 and I can't wait to see it! Though there is some protests against a sequel (mainly the people of the Catholic Church), but I doubt that those "highly" religious people will stop the making of the sequel.

With a great story, special effects, and actors & actresses, The Golden Compass will eventually become an instant classic. I suggest anyone who wants to be entertained to buy this DVD. It's affordable and entertaining.

Either way, you always get your moneys worth in the end.



"Not for us! Not a child's movie.", Wow- I have to be honest and say this is the Worst movie I have seen to date. I had heard about the controversy about this movie & religion...and on a 13 hour flight from Australia back to LA- I thought it would be good to watch. I mean the cast alone- had to be decent. It also would give me a chance to watch it before I showed it to my 6 year old. WOW- was I glad I watched it first! First off- do not let you 6 year old watch this movie. IT IS NOT A SMALL CHILD'S MOVIE. A) It is scary. It has deamons in it - that are vicious. Not only that the kids are being kidnapped - stolen. Ok- what child ,and parent for that fact, would not be freaked out by that. Seriously - if I let my kids watch this movie- they would be sleeping with us for the next week. Trust me- not for elementary kids.
B) It's dumb. The movie goes very fast- and apparently leaves out the majority of the information that a person who has NOT read the book needs in order to figure out what the heck is going on. If you have read the book- then you will get it. The rest of us- just still trying to figure all the weird scary stuff in the movie by reading reviews on Amazon;)
Overall- the movie was VERY DISAPPOINTING. I am not even going to mention the entire controversy with the relgion aspect of the movie. That is another can of worms. Bottom Line - Save your precious time - and go rent Narnia. You'll be happy you did. I am still wishing I could get those 2 hours of my life back that I wasted watching this movie.