After Lord of the Rings, the new fantasy film to be released by New Line Cinema is The Golden Compass and they are very keen to let people know that.

Based on the book Northern Lights by Phillip Pullman, the film has some intriguing elements. The story takes place within a realm where one’s soul or “demons” as they are called, are not integrated, residing within people but walk besides them in the form of animal spirits. And the general basis of the film revolves around the something called “dust”, the mystical substance from which everything evolved and the knowledge of which the Catholic Church-like religious order called the Magisterium, wants to keep hidden from the people in the fear that they would lose their followers if the truth was known. The film plays on the Renaissance mentality of search for truth in the face of persecution by the Church. And the mystery substance “dust” could possibly be synonymous to say the theory of evolution as advanced by Charles Darwin.

But besides some nice initial concepts, not much else positive can be said about the film. The plot felt rushed and jumbled and the characters felt two dimensional. Both the music and special effects felt like the rejects from Lord of the Rings. And in the absence of any echoes of larger themes, the cinema experience left something to be desired. The only possibly exciting bit of the film was a duel between two talking bears. And for a film called the Golden Compass, you hardly feel the significance on the compass. While the One ring in LOTR had always remained the focal point of the story, the Compass seems to be nothing more than an accessory or a gadget in this film.

And although there are many big name actors in this film – Daniel Craig as the Lord Asreil the scholar in search of dust, Nicole Kidman as the villainous hench-woman of the Magisterium, Eva Green as the witch queen Serafina Pekkala, Ian McKellan as a talking bear. But to be honest most of these people have hardly any screen time, especially Daniel Craig and most of the movie takes place with the film’s child actor Dakota Blue Richards as Lord Asreil neice Lyra, the only one who can harness the Compass to tell the “truth”. I almost got the feeling that as all the actors were walking off the sets of other films, some guy came up to them and said “Guys…we’re making this movie called the Golden Compass. Do you wanna be in it? It’ll only take a few hours of your time. Whaddya say?” and the actors were like “What the hell”.

In the end, in spite of all the effects and attempt at fantasy, the film seemed to lack soul and substance and in the absence of that fails to stir the imagination. At the end as the main characters fly off toward the horizon, instead of being left with a sense of the adventure to come in the sequel you feel relief that the film has finally come to an end.