Movie Review-The Golden Compass

After months of procrastination, I finally broke down and watched the controversial “family” movie, The Golden Compass. As I am sure you are well aware, this movie spawned a tremendous amount of controversy when it was first released and a significant portion of the religious community boycotted the movie due to its supposed anti-religious content. The movie itself is based upon the trilogy by Philip Pullman titled “His Dark Materials” and is supposed to be a fanciful tale of atheistic indoctrination. I have not read these books so I cannot give an opinion on them. Nevertheless, the hype and controversy clearly influenced my opinion of the movie before I ever saw the first introductory credit. If you combine that with the fact that because I only recently completed a seminary-level course on Philosophy of Religion I am acutely aware of the philosophical influences – religious and otherwise – on our culture, then it is no wonder that I decided to watch with an equally acute sense of expectation. With that predisposed bias (I’m trying to be as honest as possible here), I watched the movie and make the following review.

On its surface, the movie appears to be exactly what is proponents claimed it to be - a fanciful epic adventure on the order of “The Chronicles of Narnia” and “The Lord of the Rings”. It is a story of a young girl, Lyra, who lives in a world where a person’s soul lives in an animal creature called a “daemon” that is bound to them for life. The two are intricately intertwined and their survival is co-dependent. To be honest, I thought the high-level plot of the movie was fairly weak. The oppressive, thought-controlling, magistrate has focused all of its formidable power into crushing all views of “truth” except their own. At the same time, the magistrate has decided that all of the evil within the world is the result of the fact that mystical cosmic “dust” – the source of evil – comes to rest on each person’s daemon. Therefore, the only way to rid the world of evil is to devise a means of separating people from their daemons. The magistrate has been stealing children and experimenting on them to perfect this process. Unknown to the magistrate, however, Lyra has come into possession of a golden compass that enables her to see “the truth” that others attempt to hide. While trying to find a friend who had been abducted, Lyra becomes aware of this plot and Lyra’s must do all she can to put an end to the magistrate’s evil plan.

Is it a fanciful story or is it a masterpiece of atheistic indoctrination? Before I answer that question, you should know that I generally approach these types of controversies from the perspective that it should be viewed first as a fictional story before passing any other kind of judgment. In fact, I’ve seen all of the Harry Potter movies and enjoyed them for the stories that they were (although I admit that I didn’t read the books either). Yes, I know, it is fairly liberal for an otherwise ultra-conservative person, but I think sometimes Christians look too hard for things to judge. If I shouldn’t watch Harry Potter, then I shouldn’t watch Indiana Jones, or Iron Man, or Hitch, or any other fanciful story put out by Hollywood. They all represent worldly entertainment produced by worldly individuals. So if I must be judged, I should be judged at the macro level and not at the micro level… So, what do I look for to determine if a movie is appropriate or inappropriate to view? Obviously, I try to steer away from overt sexual immorality. I also try to steer away from gratuitous graphic language (although this is sometimes hard to predict and I must say I have had to walk out of a movie from time to time because of the language). To my own detriment, I must admit that I have a fairly high tolerance for violence – I love war movies of any kind – although too much blood and gore is totally unnecessary. Finally, I try to steer away from movies that are overtly anti-God or anti-religious unless I am watching them strictly for educational purposes… which is why-because of the hype-that I have waited so long to watch The Golden Compass.

With that background, I believe I can answer the question – is it a fanciful story or is it a masterpiece of atheistic indoctrination? My answer is this… It is most definitely the latter, although I suspect all of the target audience will see it as nothing more than the former. Allow me to explain. If the pre-release hype had not been present and if, because of my recent seminary work, I did not have an acute sensitivity to the issue at hand, I doubt I would have made any anti-theistic or anti-religious connections. Despite the really great special effects, I think the story was just plain bad, and the indoctrinating themes were so subtle that most people probably would not see them without being specifically told they were there. But they were there, and perhaps that is what makes the movie so dangerous. The movie is filled with subtle humanist themes. Lyra, the young child who is the hero of the movie, lies multiple times, justifying the dishonest means by the noble ends. The most anti-religious theme is the movie is probably the most subtle. Because the magistrate has determined that evil enters the world through a person’s daemon, they likewise determine the only way to rid the world of evil is to separate mankind from its daemons. The hero must stop this plot, because we are only complete in our humanity when we are fully integrated with our daemons. Think about it.

Personally, I would not recommend this movie because I didn’t like the story. However, I would also not recommend this movie for young children simply because you really don’t know the long-term impact these subtle themes will have on them. Will they see them for what they are? No, but they are getting indoctrinated from so many other areas that we as parents cannot control, why would we voluntarily introduce another one?