Saw 2 movies this weekend: Atonement and The Golden Compass
Atonement has lots of hype. I read comments like, “This is one of the year’s best films, a certain best picture nominee.” (from Ebert) on Friday and was really excited to go see it. I left the theater disappointed. The first half is great – it’s a great setup. The set of circumstances that destroy the lives of the 3 main characters is done extremely well and it’s very fun to watch. However, once the *main event* happens, there’s about an hour of crap. We see McEvoy and Knightly’s lives go down. There’s very little dialogue – just the two of them in different locations feeling miserable for 60 minutes. I like the concept of the movie and the cinematography is incredible, but i just didn’t feel it. Don’t believe the hype
The Golden Compass on the other hand is amazing. It’s a fairy tale similar to Harry Potter or Chronicles of Narnia. I thought Naria was horrible but have always found the Potter movies to be pretty good. The Golden Compass is easily as good as the Potter films if not better. I wasn’t as familiar with Compass so i was pleasantly surprised with the plot and the story. I love the concept of each person having a daemon representing your soul in the shape of an animal. It adds an entirely other element to all conflict and interaction and makes it much more fun to watch. I thought the story was captivating and the characters were all impressive to watch: the polar bear was awesome, Nicole Kidman was very hot and just as creepy, and the main british girl was GREAT. I’d recommend you check it out.
The entire time i was trying to think which animal my soul would be – i’m still not sure but i’m leaning towards a kangaroo.
