The Case for Northern Lights

After months of anxious anticipation, fuelled by the fantastical trailers, I finally made it to see the Golden Compass, based on the Northern Lights series of books.

The trailers promised an alternate world, where there were no hairy orcs or hippy fauns, but one where humans ruled (yeah!) in a quasi-Victorian era society, ruled by the all-powerful Majesterium.

And such promise was delivered. With more besides. With souls existing outside the body taking animal form (not human form, which could be confusing I suppose. I wonder if one could make it look like Twiki?). Where giant talking Ice Bears (they don’t have souls though, for obvious reasons) roam the Arctic (they may have had a kingdom, but humans don’t really seem to respect any boundaries). Where machinery is powered by whirling blue balls. And where the nexus to other realities resides.

A pity then that it was lumbered by a storyline that so closely resembled the Star Wars franchise: a youngster finds inner power to fight the evil Empire/ Majesterium, encountering weird and wonderful enemies and allies and magical forces, and finding parents in the most influential of places. There was the added ick factor associated with the whole ‘kids in peril” plot, and (for me) huge jumps in what the book must have revealed, as people magically either found each other or escaped from heavily fortified scientific facilities. And, just like Star Wars, the main character actually became quite annoying.

So, highly original it didn’t really seem to be, though I think the adaption for the screen really didn’t do the story a whole lot of favours by boiling down what seems a very interesting and well-developed world into fairly clichéd scenes. The ice bridge scene in particular, where a rickety bridge traversed a bottomless cavern with Ian McKellen warning of impending doom and danger had me yelling out “You shall not pass!” and “Run, you fools!” and, in the end, really didn’t add anything to the movie except time and the chance for the young heroine to scream a bit.

As you can probably tell by now, I was not overly impressed by the final result. It is not a bad film as such, but neither does it really seem to try to be a good film either. All the elements are there, the potential exists, and the sequels (if there are any, as this one seems to have got into a bit of trouble at the box office) may explore the more interesting aspects of the story in a bit more detail. The mysterious “dust” for instance, that has some sort of affect on adults (I must have missed the part that explained what this effect actually was, and why this was so threatening to the Majesterium); the cult of the Majesterium itself, based (apparently) on the Catholic Church – though I never really understood where it stood on a global stage on this world (are there Islamic states? Hindisteria? Judadom?); and also the whole idea of the soul existing outside the body too, apparently having a different personality and sex from the individual as well.

So, I will keep my eyes out for the sequels, should there be any, and may even read the books, should I find some, to get the uncensored anti-organised religion text in its full glory. But the movie itself?

Verdict: The compass guiding my thumb seems to be pointing towards the south. Two bags of dust out of five.

P.S. The Ascot theatre in Upper Hutt is quite nice too!