The Golden Compass

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The Golden Compass ★★ 2007 (PG-13)

12-year-old Lyra (Richards) lives in a world similar to Victorian England and ruled by the churchlike Magisterium, who seem dead set on controlling the minds of everyone in the world and eliminating free will. When best friend Roger (Walker) disappears, Lyra, alongside a strange assortment of allies including a talking, armored bear (McKellan) and a pilot with a Texas accent (Elliot), travels north to rescue him, despite the Magisterium and their ice-queen agent Ms. Coulter's(Kidman) best efforts to stop her. The all-star cast is exceptional, but the story may confound without the book as a roadmap. The film stirred a mild controversy because of the antireligion themes of the book upon which it was based (the first installment of Philip Pullman's popular British fantasy trilogy), even though writer/director Weitz mostly cut those parts from the movie. 118m/C DVD . US Nicole Kidman, Daniel Craig, Eva Green, Christopher Lee, Dakota Blue Richards, Sam Elliott, Ben Walker, Tom Courtenay, Derek Jacobi, Kathy Bates; D: Chris Weitz; W: Chris Weitz; C: Henry Braham; M: Alexandre Desplat; V: Kristin Scott Thomas, Freddie Highmore, Ian McKellen, Ian McShane. Oscars ‘07: Visual FX; British Acad. ‘07: Visual FX.