The Coca Cola bear has a movie! The Golden Compass is the first of a trilogy based on the books by Philip Pullman. Boring. This movie is too long at almost two hours. The story is slow to develop and slow to action. I take that back; there is no action. The battle near the end of the movie is uninspiring. Part of that is undoubtedly the trilogy factor coming into play. They have to stretch the story enough to fill up three films. So far, the first film is boring. If the second film doesn’t pick it up, no one will care about the third.

The story takes place in a fantasy world, where each human has a daemon. A daemon is a external representation of that person’s soul. The daemons can shape shift into various animal forms, including birds with flight ability. While the daemons are linked directly to that person, the daemons are wholly entities themselves, being able to think and act on their own free will. The human – daemon relationship is similar to Ryuho and his alter, Zetseui, from the anime s-CRY-ed, but less powerful and act as pets rather than fighting entities.

While I haven’t read the books, this movie did not give me any reason to read it. The cast is comprised of some big names, including Nicole Kidman, Daniel Craig, and Ian McKellen. The child actors stunk it up. I know its harsh to bad mouth them because they’re young, but the scenes with the kids sucked. This movie needed more explosions, or Gandalf.

Score: C+