This entry was posted on Saturday, December 8th, 2007 at 6:27 pm and is filed under Family, Fantasy Adventure, G, NEW ON VIDEO. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
Director: Chris Weitz
Starring: Dakota Blue Richards, Nicole Kidman, Daniel Craig, Ben Walker, Ian McKellan, Eva Green, Ian McShane, Sam Elliott, Jim Carter, Freddie Highmore
Chris Weitz, who is more familiar with comedies, (like American Pie, which he produced) wrote this screenplay from Phillip Pullman’s popular novel, and then took an unfamiliar position at the directorial helm for this imaginative and fantastically, visual epic. The story, here, feels rushed with too many characters to have any real development and many of them mechanically spill out long back stories. This throws a lot at the viewers, who, like myself, haven’t read the books. I caught some of it, but, since I didn’t give it an exam-cramming effort, all the details here didn’t quite stick. The acting is generally good, but does let down in spots, but the CGI is as impressive as any that I’ve seen.
Dakota Blue Richards is Lyra, a spirited, and imaginative, girl, who finds that she has an important role to play on the alternate universe Earth, where the story takes place. On this world, an evil power structure called the Magisterium, is kidnapping children to properly educate them to be obedient little serfs. The key to defeating this dangerous institution, is a magical, truth-revealing golden compass which Lyra is destined to use. Thus equipped, she joins with numerous allies, including Sam Elliott who is in a familiar role as some kind of old west talking, sky cowboy, and Ian McKellan as the voice of a giant, armored Ice Bear, as she travels north to find and rescue the children.
The marketing machine was in full production when they fired this one out at the Christmas rush, and plastered in our faces everywhere we look, in hopes that they would get the gift of a giant opening weekend. There’s great CGI, but the end result is a mediocre film. I still pick Stardust as the year’s best family/fantasy feature.
