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ENTERTAINMENT THE GOLDEN COMPASS December 9, 2007 I wrote the below review as an angry email to a few friends after the sneak preview of The Golden Compass last Saturday. I wasn't going to post it because I thought it was overly sadistic and mean, but I hear The Golden Compass disappointed at the box office, so I figure I'll kick the CGI polar bear when it's down. Broken Compass I was one of the "lucky" few who braved the 17 degree weather and plopped down ten bucks to see The Golden Compass. It's horrible. The writing was total crap. No characters of any interest whatsoever. Just a collection of archetypes stolen from better fantasy movies and rendered completely limp. The main girl didn't have a character either. She was just a series of half baked motivations used as the reason to move the incomprehensible plot from point A, to B, to C. I had no idea what was going on half the time, why everyone had talking animals, why some animals could shapeshift and some couldn't, what the Dust was, who the witches were, etc, and worst of all, I couldn't have given a crap. The name actors were mostly wasted. Daniel Craig was in the movie for ten minutes at most. He didn't have a character or anything even to do except yell at every character he came across and then get kidnapped. Nicole Kidman's surgically mangled clown face had a lot more screen time and was more terrifying than a million slasher movies. I used to like Nicole Kidman's work but now her presence in a movie is the harbinger of disaster. Stay the fuck away when a Nicole Kidman picture violates a movie theatre. Beautiful Eva Green appears halfway through the movie solely to deliver exposition and then shows up again for no good reason to speak of besides the fact the script called for a big battle at the end. As a Casino Royale reunion between Craig and Green, Compass is a failure since they never have a scene together. Kidman and Craig also have no scenes together but Compass marks their second dud starring together in 2007. Good job. The directing was pathetic. The special effects were Playstation 2 caliber and the entire movie was composed of it. Everything looked completely fake and unconvincing. The movie is just a hodgepodge of ideas stolen from Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, and Narnia, right down to a talking CGI bear with a British accent in place of the talking CGI lion with the Irish accent. The golden compass itself was a lame fucking device; its parameters were hardly explained and made no sense. I was bored by and hated every second of this turd. And then the movie has the fucking balls to not provide any sort of ending or closure and just abruptly stop in a forced cliffhanger. Fuck you, says I. I don't care what happens next, I won't be there. If I hadn't already seen The Heartbreak Kid and Southland Tales, I'd call The Golden Compass the worst movie of the year. - John Orquiola |
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