A Very Commoner's Bash For "The Golden Compass"

Has been days (or weeks) since the last blog kicked the dust in this blog. Motivation is back again - after I hauled my bottoms to the cinema seat last Saturday to catch "The Golden Compass". Practically to say that the driving force behind my words is my disappointment towards the film was kinda an understatement - and it's the same sort of disappointment when you were told you were served cake, you're expecting a Black Forest but in the end what you get is a nifty piece of Pandan layer cake.

So yeah, taking out the details and putting it up in a rough manner, it tells about this girl in an alternate dimension who was destined to be able to decipher this 'know-it-all' compass, and what makes her so special is because she owns the last unit in the hood. Practically there's this governing force which seeks to destroy all of the compasses because they were afraid of the device 'telling the truth', and soon the girl has to run from them and puts up the fight etc. I won't go into the story much since it's based from the novel, and also I'm just here to bash up why I'm so... pissed about the film. And before I start off I will have to disclaim that, I HAVE NOT READ THE NOVEL YET, SO I'M JUST BASHING WHAT I FELT BAD ABOUT THE FILM.

The film started out OK, but at the middle to near end part, it was obviously rushed - a lot of scenes seem to take a shortcut and skipped over, leaving me in the 'huh ?' zone. It kinda started off at the part where Lyra was convincing the bear Iorek that he was cheated of his armour. Kinda backfired on me because the timeframe between when they first met and Iorek 100% buying Lyra's 'tip' of his armour's whereabouts is just too short - something seems to be quite missing there though, like since Iorek has been tricked, shouldn't he sound a bit more skeptical and paranoid by now?

Then it got worse - the bear crashed into the local governing office to find his armour, and the enforcers were like, standing so calmly aiming with their rifles in a half-circle formation, surrounding the office while waiting the bear the come out. Waiiiiitt a minute. Something seems wrong here. They are confronting a - bear - that went berserk, not some group of bank robbers that's trying to get away with their booty and holding a hostage or two. I thought there was supposed to be more panic in the air, but somehow it was like, no one gives a crap about it.

An unintentional sexual innuendo follows next ("Do you mean, you want to ride me?"), then soon after a turn of events it was the bear fights bear scene, which was lacking in epicness for some reason (I guess I will have to blame the bears surrounding the ring for not bringing up the atmosphere enough - they are armoured bears dammit, but they cheered like wimps). But, the next part is what that really bothers me the most - Lyra trying to run across the natural rock bridge over this ravine. Iorek was like a fan for a losing basketball team yelling desperately at the TV, telling her not to look down, not to blah blah and stuff. Then when Lyra reached the middle of the bridge, the rock bridge starts to fall apart and Iorek panically yelled at Lyra to run, and then suddenly and quite surprisingly, the scene jumps to shows her ALREADY at the other end. So she can somehow magically teleport...

Then afterwards it was Hell - Cliché Hell. Think of "The cake is a lie" and then "I am your father". At that point I was already feeling quite uneasy at my seat, shifting myself in ATTEMPT to cool down my mind due to the cheesiness of the scenes (note : still the SCENES of the FILM, and not bashing the novel... yet?). And then, the escape scene was another big 'huh?' for me. How did the bear got over there in time ? I don't mean how he crossed the ravine (Scoresby the aeronaut solves the problem), but what I mean is - how the HECK did he appear that spontaneously to block the attack of the guard, without the guards detecting his presence in the first place? I guess he knows how to magically teleport as well...

The battle scene was... a mess. Practically what I see was a swarm of black figures fighting each other in the midst of chaos, and which is which or who is who is quite the great mystery there. Then of course the heroes' side won the battle and swiftly left the scene after that (but wait, there are wounded and dying comrades around the place !), and another unintentional sexual innuendo ("Come let us sleep." - sounds pretty mild, but then... it's between Lyra and her boy acquantaince, and the bear which she 'rode' before. Ewww.) before the film wraps up with a cliffhanging deus ex machina for a coming sequel.

So yeah, I walked out of the cinema, bringing with me the shock that almost caused me to have 'amnesia' to forget what I did that night. It doesn't help when all this disappointment has to be served with the fact that the cast was quite high prolifically. Ian McKellen's voice acting was great, but his role for Iorek was a brutal letdown thanks to sloppy scriptwriting. Daniel Craig was just a decoration vase - I guess he was given the unnecessarily-included and unrelated fighting scene with the Samoyeh's just to make up with his participation. The only saving grace would be, hands down, Nicole Kidman's portrayal for the personality-contradicting Mrs. Coulter. Dakota Blue Richards has the potential to play the 'mischievious, cunning girl' type, though it seems she will have to participate in a better movie to make her own portfolio look better.

So yeah, in short, the film was ruined because to me, it was rushed and the director and his team were being careless in the end. There goes my money to buy that ticket for a moment of great disappointment.