|
The Golden Compass (2 disc Special edition) [2007] | ![The Golden Compass (2 disc Special edition) [2007]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/612Vg1J5X3L._SL160_.jpg)
 enlarge | Actors: Nicole Kidman, Eva Green, Ben Walker, Daniel Craig, Clare Higgins
Studio: Entertainment in Video
Category: DVD
List Price: £24.99
Buy New: £12.49
You Save: £12.50 (50%)
New (11) Used (4) from £10.90
Rating:  9 reviews
Format: Box Set, Pal
Language: Italian (Original Language)
Rating: Parental Guidance
Region: 2
Number Of Discs: 2
Running Time: 109 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 7.6 x 5.4 x 0.6
EAN: 5017239195822
ASIN: B0014XVTJ8
Theatrical Release Date: 2007
Release Date: April 28, 2008
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Condition: Brand New and Fully Guaranteed - Over 90% of orders are dispatched same day or next day by First Class post. Please note Danish customers may incur custom charges.
| |
| Similar Items:
|
| Customer Reviews:
 Who are the critics writing for? May 1, 2008
Ms. P. S. Manix (Woodstock, England)
15 out of 18 found this review helpful
This film has been not just panned, but viciously berated. No wonder it attracted such luke-warm success. I went dreading it, as His Dark Materials was one of those life-changing books in my life. Imagine my pleasure when I found the film incredibly well done. I just do not know what the critics were carping about. As with the Harry Potter films, there had to be HUGE compromises made to the two-hour limitation of a film, but The Golden Compass FAR OUTDID any of the Harry Potters in condensing a complex and hefty book into a comprehendible 2 hour film. I thought the short cuts and abridgments they did with the Golden Compass were entirely in keeping with and reverential to the book---it was brilliantly done. Sure, there are always differences in interpretations of individual characters on the screen (Craige is far too warm, Kidman should be dark, not blonde...) but the rest of the characters/actors were positively spot on, and Daniel Craig and Kidman did such excellent jobs otherwise capturing the essence of the characters in the minute periods of time they had, that you quickly lent them the benefit of the doubt for starting from a slightly different place than the book. Sure, thousands of details, and side stories were sacrificed to the film's abridgment, and sure, some stories were merged to help condense the story, but even these were masterfully done and retained the spirit of the story.
Hey! A two hour film can NEVER compete with a 600 page book. But it CAN capture some of the magic of a story and portray it with integrity. This film is a first rate film of a remarkable book. I, for one, cannot WAIT for the next two installments. Bravo.
 Abysmal to the point of being a travesty April 30, 2008
A. J. Sturgess (North Yorkshire, UK)
12 out of 21 found this review helpful
Only if you've never read 'Northern lights' nor 'His Dark Materials' will this film be in any way worth watching. It is truly, TRULY awful - with 2 capital T's and a massive capital 'A'. The special features on Disc 2 are probably a better buy than the film itself, and then only if you haven't seen documentaries about the making of this type of film before.
I'm not in the least bit surprised that it wasn't a hit at the box office. It's also fairly obvious why, upon it's release, it was being sold off for less than 10 in local supermarkets. If you've not read the books or don't know the depth and breadth of the original stories, it may just be OK. But it's totally one-dimensional to the point of being almost insubstantial. The story as told in the film is shallow, totally linear and bereft of anything that could be called worthy of thought or consideration. The most obvious give-away is the frequency with which a narrator or one of the characters has to explain a major part of the storyline. (Always a bad sign). The first minutes of the film, for instance, are unrelated to the book - that starts in the room where Lyra and her daemon see the poison being put into the drink. The film starts with a narrator trying to explain a major part of the story that only becomes apparent during the first novel. The ending of the film has obviously been set up to lead into the next part - but if this film is anything to go by, I hope they abandon any thoughts of making another. It will be a complete waste of money.
With no disrespect to Blyton, 'The Golden Compass' is such a stripped-down, simplified and dull interpretation of Pullman's book that it is little better than an Enid Blyton version re-drafted for infants.
The two things they DID do well were the daemons and the Alethiometer. Although even there, they overdo the mystical golden dust images in which Lyra sees the answers to her questions.
The bears were OK, but a tad too obviously CGI. Mark you - that's better than men in furry suits.
And as for the song at the end - YEUK!!!! That is so appalingly inappropriate and just plain naff that it beggars belief. I well remember that ages before I saw the first Harry Potter film, I heard some music on the radio. I didn't know what it was, but I'd never heard it before and I remember thinking, "I bet that's the Harry Potter theme". And it was. Whoever wrote the music for 'Compass' ought to return their fee. It is instantly forgettable and has no motif nor character whatsoever.
Without a doubt, 'Compass' suffers dreadfully in comparison to the richness of the worlds created by JKR and in the ways in which those worlds are being brought to the screen in the sequential Potter films. The 'Compass' film makers just haven't had the vision, humour, imagination (or budget??) to get anywhere close and their feeble attempts to create so many varied and 'unusual' modes of transport make the whole thing look like a cheap sci-fi CGI movie of the time-traveller variety.
So, all-in-all, unless you like dreary, shallow fantasy films, or if you have never read or heard anything about the depth and breadth of both the storyline and the complex ideas in Pullman's work, then buy this DVD at your peril. Personally, I'm passing my own copy on to my daughter who will be advertising it for sale on Amazon!!!
All the creative tension of The Chalet School Goes North - a dreary, meaningless muddle. Avoid disappoinment - leave it alone. April 30, 2008
Dr. V. Stewart (Somerton,, Somerset United Kingdom)
9 out of 16 found this review helpful
Anyone who's read and enjoyed Phillip Pullman's book will be disappointed if they expect to find this movie telling the same story; anyone who hasn't will probably wonder why on earth they bothered to make it. It's a badly-put-together string of 'this happened ... that happened ... then this happened ... with absolutely no dramatic tension, no establishment of any of the characters, and even the special effects leave much to be desired.
If you've read Phillip Pullman's book, you'll find that there's so much left out or altered that it hardly represents the original. To take just one example: in the book, it's central to Lyra's deception of Iofur Raknison that 'you cannot trick a bear.' This is left out of the film, removing any possible tension from the fight between Iorek and Iofur. Or, when Lyra arrives at Bolvangar, she immediately has a plan for escape ... none of the tension during the time that she's kept captive, none of the terror that the children feel ... you don't even get to see the cages containing the severed daemons. So all the fierce horror and disgust engendered by the intercision process is erased - even Tony Makarious (the severed child who's been haunting the village) is returned safely to the arms of his mother.
Mrs. Coulter's glamour is so obviously overdone that it simply doesn't fit. And in the opening scene, where Lyra is spying on the meeting from her cupboard, there's no mention of the head of Stanislaus Grumman - so I daresay he's been written out of the sequels (assuming that they make them; I wish they wouldn't).
It's a film from which all the subtlety of Pullman's book has been erased;
you could completely miss the deep struggle between good and evil that he depicts, and it has all the creative tension of The Chalet School Goes North. A definite No, on all counts.
How can they get away with having 'extended edition' on the cover? May 5, 2008
J. J. HALL (London, England)
7 out of 8 found this review helpful
I thought this to be a fairly flat and forgettable experience at the cinema with huge chunks of the book missing or re-arranged... a 2 star experience at best.
Then I heard nearly an hour of material had been cut by New Line and that gave me hope that at some point a 'Director's Cut' might perhaps emerge; with the correct ending and all the other missing footage restored, but it is not on this DVD as the running time reveals!
I have not bought this as I am awaiting the inevitable re-release when this sells well... my review here is only to warn people that the 'Extended Edition' slapped on the front is false advertising in my opinion and I cannot fathom how they can get away with it... if you thought the theatrical release of this film was flat and tame then don't buy this as it is exactly the same film!!
 excellent! May 4, 2008
Rosy Egg (Pontypool)
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
I thought this was going to be a bad film because of the negative reviews and the fact it was being sold cheaply, but I was pleasantly surprised. I found the film very moving and Dakota Blue was very convincing as lyra. It is a long time since I read the book but I did not notice many alterations. The animals were all wonderful and I thought Nicole Kidman (and her daemon) came over as very evil. I was near to tears a number of times. The whole film was very beautiful and how one reviewer could compare it to Harry Potter in a negative way, I do not understand. Yes, the religious aspect was played down, but that is America for you, narrow-minded and blinkered. Aat least it was not so cut about like the last Harry Potter, as to be unrecognisable. Film makers have got to realise that viewers DO have the attention span to watch 3 and 4 hour films. Lord of the Rings got away with it (and look how they changed that story, very disappointing, but I do understand)
Ignore the other reviews and give it a try.
|
|
|
|
Copyright Thalasar Ventures | |
![The Golden Compass (2 disc Special edition) [2007]](http://pics.ebaystatic.com/aw/pics/navbar/eBayLogoTM.gif)