Written by: Bodhruj Jaman;
Date: Sunday, April 27th, 2008;
Filed under: Reviews;
Tagged with: blu ray, movies, Playstation 3, PS3, Reviews, the golden compass.
Comments:

First Blu-ray Review, and I’m hoping to get some game reviews your way soon.

Overall, it’s a well made film, with a big budget and good actors. Good so far.

The protagonist, Lyra Belacqua (Dakota Blue Richards), lives in a parallel world, where each human has a daemon (pronounced demon), a lifelong companion in the form of an animal. Before adolescence, a child’s daemon can change shape and form, but after adolescence, their daemons ’settle’, to reflect their personality.

The Golden Compass is part of a Trilogy of Novels by Phillip Pullman, called ‘His Dark Materials’. The three books are based around the vague subject of ‘Dust’, with a capital D. Dust is a mystery to everyone, some think it’s good, some think it’s bad, but no-one knows.

Anyway, so Lyra lives in ‘her Oxford’, and recently, there’ve been stories going around about ‘the Gobblers’, who kidnap children from their towns. Now, the Gobblers have come to Oxford.

So there’s Lyra, safe and sound in the shelter of Jordan College, where her Uncle left here in care while he went off and explored, when her uncle, Lord Asriel (Daniel Craig/James Bond) visits with something to show to the scholars of the college. So, Lyra, being the cheeky little thing she is, had to take a peek. She saw something she shouldn’t have, and that’s where it all starts.

Next is the visit of Mrs. Coulter (Nicole Kidman), another explorer of the North, which facinates Lyra, as she is generally facinated by the North. Mrs. Coulter charms Lyra into moving in with her and her Golden Monkey daemon, wit the prospect of taking her North to explore.

On the early morning of little Lyra’s departure, the Master of Jordan College calls her into his study and gives her a mysterious looking device, that apparently tells ‘the truth’, called an Alethiometer. Lyra treasures it and eventually learns to use, it, completely in secret.

Soon after Lyra leaves for a supposedly happy life in London Town, she discovers Mrs Coulter’s role in the Gobblers, and that she is, infact, the mastermind behind it. So off Lyra goes, Alethiometer and all, into the streets of London, where she is found by her old Oxford Gyptian friends, who take her into their care.

The Gyptians set off to find and destry the notorious Gobblers, and gather the company of an Armored Bear named Iorek Byrnison, and some witches. On their way to the Gobblers, Lyra is taken captive by the very same Gobblers, frees all the children, after discovering what they are doing, and her side takes the victory, in an epic fight scene at the end on the film.

PlayStation Heads gives this Movie 7/10