The Golden Compass, based on the book by Phillip Pullman, was a good film, though not quite as good as the book (which often happens). The pace was too quick, and the movie too short (just short of two hours). The Golden Compass is a 544 page book, with a fairly complex plot. The filmmakers cut things out, and re-arranged things until the movie moved at a quick pace and lacked important information. New Line, here’s a tip: Don’t try to cram a 500+ page book into less than two hours of film! Fantasy films can be much lunger than that. I, personally, don’t like it when movies have a running time of less than two and a half hours.

Some who have not read the book may have trouble figuring out what’s going on at times, due to the cut information. I felt that a lot of the changes and removals were unnecessary.

If you’ve read the book, then you’ll definitely want to see the film. If you haven’t, you’ll still enjoy the story…though (as with any movie based on a book) I’d still recommend reading the book first.

The Golden Compass was a good movie, and an even better book. Despite some complaints, I think the book’s overall essence was captured in the film. It’s worth watching.

This entry was posted on Saturday, December 8th, 2007 at 8:27 am and is filed under Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.