Although 2007 was a year that featured a lot of excellent adaptations from book to film (“Atonement,” “No Country for Old Men,”), “The Golden Compass” is not one of them. The books by Phillip Pullman are terrific, fantasy-filled books with rich characters and a very moving story, but the movie is kind of blah.

As an aside, I want to address the controversy that surrounded this film and Pullman’s books when the film was released in December. While the books may be anti-church as government/all ruling power, they are certainly not anti-religion or spirituality. Regardless, the film avoids any of the hoopla that had people up in arms (most of the hoopla comes from the second book anyway) and tries to get viewers who had never read the books excited about the story.

They failed.

For everything they got right (the armored polar bears, aeronaut Lee Scoresby, Miss Coulter’s creepy monkey), they completely botched something else (having the wrong kid get abducted, how Lyra finds out about the Gobblers, the entire ending).

I know this review probably reads weird for people who could give two hoots about the books, but bear with me. Think of it this way: “The Golden Compass” is like someone screwing up the first “Harry Potter” movie. Now there can’t be a part two and there are a part two and three (both better books, too) waiting. Would you want to live in a world without the “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban” movie?

O.K., I’ve cooled down a bit. This is just a bad movie, not the end of the world.

The story of “The Golden Compass” is about Lyra, a girl orphaned at a version of Oxford in an alternate universe. Lyra is a storyteller (to put it kindly) and gets into a lot of mischief. There is a lot going on in her world – child abductions, her uncle’s search for the meaning of Dust (this cosmic material that ties in with people’s souls), a rescue mission involving sea-faring gypsies and armored polar bears, etc. Great stuff and a complete page-turner, except onscreen it becomes plodding and boring.

I’ll give director Chris Weitz some credit for fully realizing Lyra’s world. The humans and their animal counterparts are done very well, as are the zeppelins and the way that a modern world incorporates some of the style of the past as well. Weitz and crew also did a fantastic job of casting (props to using Sam Elliot as Scoresby, that was a perfect choice), but the script could have used some melodramatic punch and pacing. There was no sense of Lyra’s urgency and even the big battle scene at the end felt kind of small in scope.

The end of the movie is the worst part, especially for anyone who has read the books. It stops about five minutes short and is just awful. The producers must have thought – wow, we’re so clever, ending on a high note – except there is now really no demand for a part two. The viewer must assume that Lyra goes to her father and all is well.

Wrong.

Note to future adaptors of fantasy novels – take your time and give the viewer time to appreciate the world you are showing. If they had added 20-30 minutes to this film, they could have told more of the side stories and had a little more fun. Overall, “The Golden Compass” (the film) felt about as much fun as a story about the nature of free will as you think it would. Pullman pulled it off with his series, but the makers of the movie did not.

Note: Yes, this movie is a bit old, but it just opened at the dollar theater in Fayetteville, which gets a thumbs-up from me due to the cleanliness of the theater, the prompt start time and the overall bargain. I hadn’t been there in a long time, but I will go back again soon.

**

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