In the US, at least. That’s this Saturday December 1. I checked fandango.com first, but they only listed theaters in the Chicago suburbs, which is impossible for us, so I checked movietickets.com, and they had a much larger list of theaters, so I bought tickets for River East 21 down by Navy Pier. moviefone.com might also have listings.
My husband and I are so excited for this. We liked the books, the movie looks great, and Kate Bush sings a new song over the ending credits.
For the most part, except for the religious nitwits who are all up in arms about it, it’s getting pretty good reviews.
Here are snippets from a couple (there are no plot points revealed, but it does reveal the nature of one of the characters. It’s revealed very quickly in the film anyway, but if you know nothing about TGC and want to go in knowing nothing, maybe you shouldn’t read this):
This is from The Guardian in London:
[spoiler]If Darth Vader wore a blond wig, a slinky dress and a dab of Chanel behind each ear, he could hardly be as evil as Nicole Kidman, playing the gorgeous villainess Mrs Coulter in this spectacular new movie version of Northern Lights, the opening episode of Philip Pullman’s fantasy series His Dark Materials.
Pullman reportedly suggested Kidman for the role. Even if he hadn’t, Kidman herself would have been kicking her agent’s door in to get it. This is the very best sort of part for her: statuesque, elegant, seductive, with a hint of cold steel. In many ways, it’s her juiciest character since the sociopathic meteorologist in To Die For.
…it certainly looks wonderful, with epic dash and a terrific central performance from Nicole Kidman, who may come to dominate our children’s nightmares the way Robert Helpmann’s Child Catcher in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang once did ours. It has no other challengers as this year’s big Christmas movie.[/spoiler]
This from The Daily Mail…you see a pattern here, they’re raving about Nicole!
[spoiler]Nicole Kidman’s seductively glamorous villain Mrs Coulter arrives in The Golden Compass just in time to give us our bearings. When she walks down the hall of fictional Jordan College in a figure-hugging gold lamÈ gown, her honey-blonde locks permed into place, the men on screen fall silent - and my mouth fell open and an involuntary “wow!” fell out. Now, that’s what I call a movie star entrance, and I haven’t seen it done with such aplomb in years.
Within seconds of being seduced, though, you’re terrified. This broad is a real villain. She’s sinister, manipulative and complex, radiating a sense of menace. Her performance in the picture, the first based on Philip Pullman’s best-selling His Dark Materials trilogy, is her most powerful since winning the best actress Oscar for Stephen Daldry’s The Hours.
The movie’s other big “wow” factor is 13-year-old Dakota Blue Richards, who plays impish heroine Lyra Belacqua. She’s a revelation - a world away from the usual movie brat you get in Hollywood blockbusters. Lyra is the kind of ragamuffin who’d stick her tongue out at you, steal your wallet and be halfway to China before you knew it. She and Miss Kidman give the movie its heat. [/spoiler]
For the most part, the problems people have (again, assuming they’re not religious loonballs) is that they try to cram in so much (but also have to cut out so much) and just plop you down into the world, so book purists will probably have complaints about what was cut out, and those easily confused or who want every little thing explained to them are going to complain about, whatever those types of people complain about.
Bottom line though, is this:
Saturday can’t come quick enough!