Much has been said about whether Christians should or should not go see the current movie, The Golden Compass. Unfortunately, much of this has been said by people who have neither seen the movie nor read the book on which it was based. I saw the movie last week and will choose this venue to give my views and reviews.
The movie is a pretty good movie. It is not the great movie that some are trying to make it. One reviewer praised it above the Harry Potter movies and "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe" (based on the first of the Chronicles of Narnia). While the overall production values are quite good, I don’t think it measures up to either of those movies. The acting is generally excellent, with Nicole Kidman and Dakota Blue Richards standing out. Daniel Craig’s part was negligible, and the great Christopher Lee was wasted in only one scene. (One suspects the studio hired them mainly so they could put big names on the marquee. In this case it becomes a case of bait and switch.)
The first part of the movie is slow and confusing. It is only when the action really starts moving half way through that the movie begins to get interesting. There is much left unexplained, most notably the nature of "dust." The average non-Catholic would probably never associate "the Magisterium" to the Roman Catholic Church, which it is apparently supposed to represent in the books. It is unclear why Nicole Kidman’s character works for the Magisterium, when her own character seems the opposite of everything for which they stand. Because of the weakness of the long introductory material, this becomes a good movie rather than an outstanding one.
Independent of the books, I would easily recommend that Christians see the movie. The themes of loyalty, courage, and free will are commendable. The mysterious "dust" seems to me to be roughly equated to the spirit of God. When anyone dies, their "demon" (which is explained to be equivalent to our spirit) turns into "dust." Even if you know that the Magisterium is supposed to represent the Roman Catholic Church, many would say that it only represents the traditional rather than the scriptural side of that body. If you do not know that the Magisterium is supposed to represent the Catholic Church, then it assumes the nature of any government that passes laws that they think are for the betterment of their people. Those fans of the books who objected to the watered down nature of the movie have a legitimate complaint. Other than an implied tendency toward anarchism, the movie stands as a reasonable "good vs. evil" story with strongly favorable religious overtones.
The movie points out that this takes place in an "alternate universe," parallel to ours. As such, it could easily be viewed as a cautionary tale about what could happen if the church were perverted beyond recognition. I could easily view it as saying this might be a possibility, but it is not so in our world. But that leads to the controversy, which comments I will post later.
