60-second cinema

7 out of 10 Despite feeling incredibly condensed, I rather liked The Golden Compass. Fantasy isn’t normally my thing, but at least this wasn’t fairytale stuff. In fact, I'm quite keen to see the following 2 episodes in the trilogy. Who knows - I might even get the books on which they're based. Back to the film, though, and I can't get away from the pacing of it. Nearly every single scene feels rushed. Not in a thrown-together sense, but as if someone were trying to give you a summary of the story in very limited time. Given this, there was a fair amount of exposition too. I don't know what the running length was, but it could've easily managed another half hour, maybe even 45 minutes, and I wouldn't have complained. It really needed to take a breath and expand upon various plot- and character-development scenes, some of which lasted less than 10 seconds. Still, the quality of the story and the integrity of its setting were good enough to pull it through....

6 out of 10 I'll start by saying I am a massive fan of the books, but given the tales of a rather turbulent production I was keeping my hopes for the film in check. The trailers had looked visually stunning, but I was concerned about how they would get such a complex story into a couple of hours. One thing that struck me pretty early on in the film was that the screenplay really wasn't up to the job. The story moved from scene to scene at such a speed that I imagine many who came to the film without having read the books would have been lost. The three main actors did fine jobs: Kidman proved to be an admirable Mrs Coulter, and Daniel Craig's brief appearances as Lord Asriel were also up to the job. The star though was Dakota Blue Richards, for a first-timer I thought she captured Lyra extremely well. The CGI was pretty impressive even if the bear fight, while visually spectacular, didn't really engage the viewer. Iorek was portrayed well and Eva Green produced ...