Thursday, December 13, 2007

The Golden Compass

Let me preface this by saying I have not read the book. So to go from there I went out and saw The Golden Compass with Bear today and I feel like telling you about it so listen up. The movie started out at a rather fast pace with a "chase" scene almost right off the bat. As the movie progressed there was a couple of scenes where the background of the world was explained, which I found very helpful, and then the main antagonist was introduced. Playing a facade she took away young Lyra. After she escaped she somehow managed to travel up north to save a bunch of children who got kidnapped by the organization, I cant remember the name right now. Along the way she joins of with a group of Gyptians which to me would be really fucking weird just going with a group not knowing anything about them. Thankfully we find out later that one of Lyra's friends is the son of one of the Gyptians she goes with. Anyways she makes a bear friend, who was played by none other than Ian McKellen, and he helps her out in the movie. Oh and as a side note Christopher Lee makes an appearance as one of the higher up bad guys. When ever these two are together in a movie they are always on opposite sides of each other, weird. So the bear fights another bear and rips his jaw off, holy crap that scene was violent for a PG-13 movie, damn. So we go through some happy stuff, yay!!!!!! and some sad stuff, boo!!!!!! and some suspenseful stuff, ahh!!!!!! and some fighting, rargh!!!!! and the end, uhh..... What a shitty ending to a movie. It just kind of ends. F that. After talking to Bear he told me that the book actually continues on after that to a sad ending, but the director wanted to end on a happy note, what the fuck? If your planning on making books into movies, especially a trilogy of books where the ending of one affects the beginning of another dont pussy out and end it how you want to do the damn thing correctly. Apparently he deviates from the book a lot. Ive heard that there are very anti-christian undertones that affect the book, but Pullman didnt want to put them in because he didnt want to offend his audience. Oh boo hoo, if your offended by anti-christian topics then dont watch the fucking movie and let us who know how to have a good time do so. Plus he wrote the fucking book for that reason and then he doesnt want them in the movie. F that. At the end of the movie when the credits rolled it said based of the book The Northern Lights by Phillip Pullman. Uhh What??? Last time I checked it was based of the book The Golden Compass which is why the movie was named The Golden Compass. Maybe it was just an error but thats a pretty big error. Anywho it left me with a bunch of questions, for example what happens to deamons when they die? Hmmm. Maybe Im not supposed to know but it would help. Now for the actually critiquing. The animation was done superbly and the movie really flowed from one point to another. The one big fault that I found with the movie is the supreme under use of Daniel Craig and Nicole Kidman. With all the commercials I would have thought they would have had a bigger role but combined they were in maybe 3-4 scenes. Disappointing to say the least. I thought that the cast was put together excellently and that they couldnt have done any better if they tried. But of course they tried you say, well fuck you, its a saying, ass-hat. The ending was left open, obviously, and I would hope that they make the rest of the trilogy but with the way the movie turned out they are gonna have to pull something magical out of their ass to pull it off. Overall Id give a meager 7/10 for a shitty shitty ending and leaving major parts of out the movie that were in the book. Other than that I like how it turned out, I wasnt too disappointed and am looking for the rest of the series. On tomorrow agenda look for a review of the new film I Am Legend, looks to be, but of course I havent read that book either, oh you didnt know it was based off a book did you, well it was, you learn something new everyday dont you. Goodnight to you all and dont let the door hit you when your stupid.

-Soup

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