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List Price: $28.98 | | Label: New Line Home Video
Salesrank: 2425
Released: April 29, 2008 |
| Our Price: $4.38 |
| Used Price: $4.08 |
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MPAA Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
In a wondrous parallel world where witches soar the skies and Ice Bears rule the frozen North a young girl sets out on a quest to save her friend.System Requirements:Running Time: 113 minutesFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: SCI-FI/FANTASY/FANTASY Rating: PG-13 UPC: 794043120114 Manufacturer No: 1000037811
Description of The Golden Compass (Widescreen Single-Disc Edition):
A fantasy epic with more than a passing resemblance to the Lord of the Rings and Chronicles of Narnia film franchises, The Golden Compass takes place in an alternate universe where each human's soul is embodied in a companion animal called a daemon. Lyra (Dakota Blue Richards), an orphan who's lived most of her life among the scholars at Oxford, is intrigued when her uncle, Lord Asriel (Daniel Craig), announces his plans to travel north to investigate the source of some mysterious particles called Dust. Lyra has little hope of following her uncle until a mysterious woman named Mrs. Coulter (Nicole Kidman, at her most icily beautiful) asks Lyra to travel north as her personal assistant. All is not as it seems, however, and the disappearance of Lyra's friend Roger (Ben Walker) sets her on a dizzying adventure. She does have an alethiometer, or golden compass, that can help her see the truth, and a number of companions, including her shape-shifting daemon, Pantalaimion (voiced by Freddie Highmore of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory), polar-bear warrior Iorek Byrnison (voiced by Ian McKellen), Texas aeronaut Lee Scoresby (Sam Elliott), and witch queen Serafina Pekkala (Craig's Casino Royale co-star, Eva Green). Even before its release, The Golden Compass was the subject of controversy over its perceived anti-religious themes. While it does involve an oppressive institution called the Magisterium, it's not overtly religious, particularly to a young viewer. The movie's PG-13 rating should be taken seriously, however. Suitable for an older audience than Narnia (though younger than The Lord of the Rings), it deals with complex concepts, violence (though largely bloodless) and implied death, children and animals in peril, and an unrelentingly ominous and unsettling mood.
Despite a few changes and rearrangements, the overall plot of the movie is remarkably faithful to its source material, the first installment of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy. It doesn't finish the book, however, and--much like The Fellowship of the Ring did--leaves the viewer hanging in anticipation of the next film, The Subtle Knife, due in 2009. So even though The Golden Compass is impressive--especially with its spot-on cast and terrific visual effects--we probably won't know its full emotional impact until the story is complete. --David Horiuchi
The Golden Compass (Widescreen Single-Disc Edition) Reviews:
Atheist blather 
2008-09-05 - The author made no effort to hide his anti-catholic and atheist viewpoint. While the movie itself made for decent science fiction, the story line will definitely feel like a slap in the face to any person well versed/educated in philosophy or theology.
I'd skip this and buy something with a better message (like Chronicles of Narnia).
Decent 
2008-09-02 - Started kind've slow but then got interesting. Movie is part 1 of a 3 part trilogy and sets up for the next one....if there will be one. Movie got a bad rap worldwide due to the possible "religious" aspects of it etc...remember it is FICTION!
Anyway, the polar bear scene is pretty sweet and looks good on bluray.
Well, it's pretty to look at
2008-08-31 - True, it's been a about three or so years since I've read Pullman's "His Dark Materials" trilogy, the books upon which this film is based, if you didn't know. But as that time three years ago was my second time going through the trilogy, I still like to think I had a decent memory of them along with a decent opinion. At the risk of offending fans, I always felt Pullman's characters--Lyra, Mrs. Coulter, Will, the whole gang--to be on the weak side of characterization, a few hops from being completely two-dimensional. STILL, I thought the story and theme to be on another plane entirely, certainly enough to make the books as famous as they are and even flesh out an entertaining movie.
I promise, I tried my best to like this movie, for the sake of those books. For the sake of Sam Elliot and the goddess Nicole Kidman. Heck, even for that cute little new girl. They all did their best, but frankly this movie was fluff, and it's hard to work with fluff. How could they take such thought- and controversy- provoking books and turn them into fluff? I'm hardly an atheist, but I had appreciated the story's urge for free thought, free will, and a keener look at authority. The smidgen they put in here was all too welcomed, but not enough to give this movie proper heart and soul.
What we are left with is a rushed train of lovely cinematography, scenery, and special effects that accompany an equally rushed plot. Yes, there is a lot of story to get into this movie, but making that the priority left me cold toward these characters who were weak in the book and utterly two-dimensional on screen. I felt like I was an infant teenager being instructed in the ways of generic fantasy. Talking bears? Soul-daemons? Other worlds? Texas as a country? Wonderful, fantastic ideas that appeared on the big screen like toys in hurried images.
I'm sorry, but while the director was having fun with the camera, the audience was confused by the random jumping from scene to scene, plot to plot.
So maybe it was a tragic result of putting a plot-based rather than character-based story in a movie that led to all story and show and no emotional depth. Maybe it was a tragic result of playing it safe by removing all blatant references to religion. Maybe I'm just a whiney book purist.
All I know is that the result was flashy, heartless, and boring.
Movie: 2/5 Picture Quality: 3~4/5 Sound Quality: 4/5 Extras: 4/5
2008-08-29 - Version: U.S.A / Region A
VC-1 BD-50
Running time: 1:53:17
Disc size: 48,426,421,480 bytes
Movie size: 25,958,633,472 bytes
Average Video Bit Rate: 22.63 Mbps
DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 24-bit
(BonusView) PiP Secondary Encode
VC-1
Movie size: 21,609,013,248
DTS 5.1 1509Kbps 24-bit
Contains moderate to heavy application of Digital Video Noise Reduction (DNR)
Didn't read the book.... sorry
2008-08-28 - I never heard of the books but then as far as i knew young Mr. Potter was all the rage. I had to give this film a pass when it first came out even though I wanted to see it. Life got in the way and many moons later I finally viewed the film on DVD, a rental to boot.
I have to say, I'm not sure why this film has so many mixed reviews when I, my wife and college age daughters all loved it.
Why? Because we did. We found the characters to be both complex and sympathetic. The story is very intriquing and well paced. I'm glad it was rated PG13 because it had a few rough spots (the polar bear warriors fighting was particularly savage). As I don't own this film (a problem I'll rectify soon) I have to forego with explicit descriptions and character's names since it has been a few weeks since we viewed the film. Despite that it left its mark on me. The young lady (Lyra?) was a treat. She was payed with just the right amount of precociousness and innocence as well as drive to make her the perfect foil for adults who disregard youth as simply precocious and naive. Her rescues, escapes and minor triumphs are all worthy of acclaim. Her friends (rescuers and defenders) may have their agendas but they also sincerely help her. The polar bear warrior king was (voiced by Ian McKellen) was perfect as her loyal protector with a history that needed to be resolved.
I've read the complaints about this film and was prepared for the worst. It's too bad their noise prevailed in making this film so unpopular.
Now, thanks to that rabble, I'll have to read the books to get to the finish of the tale. That's not so terrible but this franchise deserved better than it received at the box office. I'm sure the nay-sayers are delighted in their results.
As for the complaints that this film (and the books?) impugned "mother church", well, I saw no such evidence to validate those claims.
No surprise there.
