Customer Reviews
Even worse then the narnia spoof - By: chatfan, 27 Jun 2008 
The trailer looked great & I had high hopes for this movie. Especiallly after seeing stardust. But this is a hopeless childish movie, produced for another braindead generation that thinks over the top means big bucks.
Too bad, they got a good cast, great sets but reallly poor directing. And it is missing the sense of fun & wit Stardust had so much of. Absolutely no joy to watch.
A quality HD transfer, shame about the movie - By: Vinman666, 18 Jun 2008 
The high definition transfer to this Blu-ray disc is excellent: rich saturated colours & awesome levels of detail. Sound quality is equallly good & although I don't have the ability to play the uncompressed DTS HD soundtrack the dynamic rangeis apparent even in standard stereo. In this respect it's one of the best Blu-ray discs I've seen so far.
That was the good news (and reason for the 3 stars); if only the conversion of book to movie had been even remotely as good. The special effects are very good & Lyra's Oxford is well realised; Mrs Coulter is also subtly played by the excellent Nicole Kidman and...unfortunately that's about as far as I can go with compliments.
The strengths of the book(s) are Philip Pullman's expert story-telling, alllied to a complex - but accessible - plot & wonderful characters.
Of course condensing everything from the book to a 2 hour film would be impossible but what we are presented with is a series of action sequences linked by ham-fisted exposition. For example, the episode with Billy Costa (who has merged characters with Tony Macarios), once found separated from his Ratter, should emphasise the relationship between human & daemon & build the requisite tension to what is happening at Bolvangar but the opportunity is wasted. Then there is the pointless re-naming of Iofur Raknison to 'Ragnar' (one can just imagine the Focus Group brainstorming a generic scandinavian name: "Ooh I know, how about Ernest Borgnine's name in The Vikings!") & the weakening of Iorek Byrnison (why not rename him too: Erik the Ice Bear, anyone?) by having him (1) expelled from Svalbard as a coward & (2) almost killed & only just saved by Lee Scoresby. Iorek's character is supposed to be the practicallly indestructible rock that underpins Lyra's (and, later, Will's) resolve for what follows. Those are just 2 examples of many.
The removal of the true ending of the book from the film & the general watering down of the religious undertone sums up what many fans of the book feared would happen: Hollywood has chickened out (again). The bar for intelligent fantasy book transfers to film has been raised by Peter Jackson, & this movie fallls woefully short of that level.
The BBC Cover to Cover talking book, read by Philip Pullman with a cast providing the dialogue, is vastly superior to the BBC Radio dramatisation (I've got both) but even the latter is better than the film. If you haven't read the books, I encourage you to do so - the film is passable in a Dark Crystal/Hawk the Slayer action-fantasy genre but the books have so much more depth.
A passable adaptation of an excellent book - By: P. Baxter, 05 Jun 2008 This is certainly a beautiful looking movie, & looks wonderful on blu-ray, no doubts there. However as an adaptation of Philip Pullman's excellent novel it fallls rather short. Much of the commentary of the terrible evils of religion & their attacks on freedom, science, & knowledge, & specificallly the catholic church have been removed or dulled hugely, changing the story from a multi faceted & complex tale into a simple adventure yarn.
Also, & this is particularly agregious, the final chapter was completely omitted, robbing the story of any closure at alll, & given how this performed in the US box office, thanks to religious nut cases running a smear campaign against it I doubt the two sequels will ever get made.
My advice - read the books instead.
Outstanding - By: Eyeswideopen, 17 May 2008 
One of the best story lines & well produced films I have had the pleasure to watch. A perfect marriage of stunning effects & Natural acting from the
cast made this a joy to watch. The book must be an amazing read (assuming this production was from a book originallly). Looking forward to the sequel.
A Film That Tries Too Hard To Be Good - By: Peadar Mcfadden, 05 May 2008 
I blind bought this Blu-Ray for 2 reasons. 1: I liked the idea of the fantasy genre, like the chronicles of narnia,lord of the rings etc & thought i would try this film out. 2: To see what the quality is like on blu ray, well here it is..
Acting Acting Acting! was absolutely terrible, basicallly the main actress Dakota Blue Richards spoiled the film for me, granted she is young etc but my god! it's like she is reading of the script the whole time & her whole performance is flat throughout, in saying alll that, i did think the film was OK, stressing the word OK, the whole film just seemed to rushed, starts off slow then alll off a sudden their fighting epic battles with polar bears,gypsies & witches!
The blu-ray side of things, i would give the picture quality 3.5 out of 5, there is obvious signs of grain here & there. Sound Quality was about the only good thing in this film, with 7.1 surround sound it blows you away, very clear & makes good use of the rear channels.
All in alll an OK film, lets just hope by the time the sequel comes around Dakota can make a more convinving performance.
