the cast is deadly serious, bringing each character to life and giving the audience a reason to cheer or boo them and their actions. Read this review, skip this movie, and instead read the excellent books. Poor Dakota Blue Fanning is the perfect Lyra in a terrible adaptation. Golden Compass blu-ray Weitz rapidly and intelligently opens up Pullmans world. Watching the film before reading the book transported me back to age 8, drinking in the movie of The Time Machine and growing fascinated by its vision of travel in a new dimension. Said Ridley Scott: We were contemplating talking animals in Blade Runner, but we wanted to hold off Sean Youngs descent into madness at least until the end of principal shooting. Represents the years biggest gamble — and it delivers the years biggest and most ambitious fantasy. An enormous scrap at the end, involving witches and warlocks, does little to illuminate, or leaven, this pudding.
May 03