Sunday, December 9, 2007

Jason watches "The Golden Compass"

And I assume I should just read the book, because God knows there's way too much to follow in there.

Speaking of God, here's a note to all the people out there who are charging that the movie is part of an atheist plot: you're just proving once again that you believe in things that don't exist!

Seriously, for all I know the book is pure atheist agitprop. But the movie has more of an anti-authority message, and the constant talk of souls (in the movie, they're animals called "demons" and they accompany their people everywhere) pretty much makes it hard to take as an atheist story. The closest it gets is the anti-authoritarianism combined with a reverence for knowledge, truth, and freedom (hardly ideals that atheists have a monopoly on). Plus, for a supposed atheist story, there's a hell of a lot of "deus ex machina" rescues.

With that said, Dakota Blue Richards does a fine job in the lead (we're possibly in some sort of golden age of child actors), and eventually the end battle is pretty good. It just takes a long, confusing time to get rolling. But it leaves it primed for a good sequel, and one that I assume won't have all the burden of introducing so many characters. That could be very good.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

way too much expositionary(?) dialogue in this movie. it felt like i was playing an RPG...especially the sequence when she meets the aeronaut who tells her where to find the bear. and i wouldn't have been surprised after the bear said he'd help her to see a big BJORN BEARNISON HAS JOINED YOUR PARTY! victory banner.

i did enjoy the movie a lot, and agree it's more anti-establishment then anti-religion. then again, hasn't religion become more and more 'establishment'?