The Golden Compass (2007)
Directed by Chris Weitz
In a parallel universe, after overhearing a shocking secret, precocious orphan Lyra Belacqua trades her carefree existence roaming the halls of Jordan College for an otherworldly adventure in the far North, unaware that it's part of her destiny.
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What critics compared The Golden Compass to
Jackson and fellow Rings producer Fran Walsh’s adaptation of a 2001 YA steampunk novel more than a decade after the release of the ill-advised flop adaptation of The Golden Compass (itself largely blamed for the fall of Rings supposed-powerhouse New Line Cinema) might have seemed craven and misguided even just a few years ago; now it feels preciously, precariously idiosyncratic, a kind of flight of fancy that must be protected at all costs just on principle.
There have certainly been enough attempts at launching fantasy franchises in the following years: The Golden Compass in 2007, YA dystopian fare like The Maze Runner and the Divergent series, and more recently the new Fantastic Beasts franchise, which has yet to recapture the original Harry Potter ’s magic.
It honestly feels like a film released about a decade too late; put it out around the same time as The Golden Compass or The Spiderwick Chronicles , and it might have stood a better chance.
In many ways, it reminded me of The Golden Compass remake – a story that sacrificed it’s true heart at the altar of Hollywood.
Remember how The Golden Compass was a terribly disappointing movie that didn’t have to be terrible?
“The Last Airbender’’ is dreadful, an incomprehensible fantasy-action epic that makes the 2007 film “The Golden Compass,’’ a similarly botched adaptation of a beloved property from another medium, look like a four-star classic.
Although there’s supposedly more to come, this expensive epic has the huge, hugely desperate feel of “The Golden Compass,” “Eragon” and all those other films that were supposed to kick off kids’-movie franchises — and never got past their first installments.
The Last Airbender feels almost exactly like The Golden Compass.
“Airbender” is kiddie fantasy so limp it makes “Narnia,” “Percy Jackson” and “The Golden Compass” look like unqualified masterpieces.
Just as likely, however, it will suffer the same fate of another fantasy it resembles: "The Golden Compass," which failed to push whatever buttons such fare needs to prosper.
Shyamalan has only directed one Airbender movie -- he's signed on for two sequels, but their fate rests with the box office grosses of this $150 million production -- and this situation feels awfully reminiscent of The Golden Compass, the first (and open-ended) installment in an intended franchise that was abandoned after audiences didn't turn out in enough numbers.
And yet even much of what we see feels tediously familiar, borrowed from elsewhere: The White Queen’s (Anne Hathaway: Valentine’s Day, Bride Wars) realm is Rivendell; Alice riding the Bandersnatch is The Golden Compass’s Lyra riding the warrior polar bear Iorek Byrnison; even the Mad Hatter’s tea party is taking place in the shadow of the gearpunk windmill from Burton’s own Sleepy Hollow.
The flat climax borrows architecture and action from Narnia, animals from the "The Golden Compass" and psychedelic jungle flora from the movie it's replacing in theaters, "Avatar."
There are bits of “The Lord of the Rings,’’ “Shrek,’’ “The Wizard of Oz,’’ “The Princess Bride,’’ even “The Golden Compass,’’ all given a wash of chic Gothic gloom.
Call it The Golden Compass rule: No multi-part movie series should be started without a reasonable certainty that the story will be told in full.
The final image of the movie — a child’s hand held high in warring defiance of a villain we still don’t quite understand — isn’t so much a cliff-hanger as a “dot dot dot” for a sequel that will never get made, trailing off into the dustbin alongside such open-ended fantasy movies as “City of Ember,” “Ender’s Game,” and “The Golden Compass.”
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It ends, like The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, with more story yet to be told, and more tickets to be sold.
Perhaps Weitz's oddest creative choice was concluding the film on an open-ended note a la Fellowship of the Ring.
For every financial achievement (2005's " The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe "), there is a really good picture that deserved more attention than what audiences gave it (2007's " The Golden Compass ").
It aspires to fill the gap left by the looming end of the Harry Potter series, and the abject failure of The Golden Compass movie.
Chris Weitz ("The Golden Compass" "American Pie" and "About a Boy") takes over as director and brings more action, better special effects, a larger cast of supporting characters and werewolves.
With Chris Weitz at the helm, sailing with nary a sweat from the airbrushed anti-evangelism of The Golden Compass to Meyers Mormon wet dreams, it all boils down to teens gazing at the floor while wanly mouthing lines like "Leaving you is the hardest thing Ive done in 100 years."
Taking over for Catherine Hardwicke in the director's chair is Chris Weitz (2007's " The Golden Compass "), who incorporates a few imaginative streaks of stylea seamless 360-degree camera movement circles three times around Bella as she sits in her room, the seasons changing outside her window as autumn turns to winterbut otherwise is happy to stick to Stephenie Meyer's revisionist take on bloodsuckers and werewolves, so homogenized one barely recognizes either.
While "New Moon" has an impressive soundtrack album, most of the pop-rock tunes don't mesh as well with the visuals or what is taking place in the story, making it clear that Weitz may not have been the best match for the franchise.To add insult to injury, we don't even get an entire story; like in Weitz's "The Golden Compass," the movie ends with a cliffhanger.
As well, Weitz delivers a wolf-on-wolf action sequence during Bella’s discovery of the wolf pack that is quite awesome, and reminiscent of his crowning achievement in The Golden Compass , the epic polar bear fight scene.
A smooth professional whose credits include such adaptations as “The Golden Compass” and “About a Boy,” Weitz makes the vampire trains of Melissa Rosenberg’s capable script run on time, but he almost seems too rational a director for this kind of project.
Writer Chris Weitz – with his first screenplay credit since 2007's The Golden Compass – combines the familiar skeleton of Charles Perrault's fairy tale with darker elements from the Brothers Grimm take, although the overall tone is distinctly sunny.
(I figure screenwriter Chris Weitz was chosen for this project because he adapted The Golden Compass for the big screen, and that was about a girl, right?)
The screenplay by Chris Weitz (About a Boy, The Golden Compass) follows the general beats of Disney’s animated version, although it fills in some of the narrative gaps and fleshes out its weaker characters, particularly the Prince, who has previously been little more than a wealthy and handsome cipher, but is here recreated as a fully realized character with his own desires and moral compass.
Because Kenneth Branagh’s direction lacks distinction and the “Cinderella” script by Chris Weitz (“About a Boy,” “The Golden Compass”) is thin on wit, the movie’s appeal hangs to an unusually large degree on its actors.
The script, by Chris Weitz (The Twilight Saga: New Moon, The Golden Compass) just wants to hit the familiar elements of the story we know and love.
But this “Cinderella,” directed by Kenneth Branagh and scripted by Chris Weitz (“The Golden Compass”), regresses into a straightforward approach, presenting the prince (Richard Madden) as Ella’s only escape from a life of servitude.
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Hollywood is littered with the discarded books producers once highly sought: “Beautiful Creatures,” “The Golden Compass,” “A Series of Unfortunate Events,” “The Mortal Instruments,” “Percy Jackson.”
Derek Jacobi ("The Golden Compass") plays the Archbishop as a self-satisfied fuss budget.