Richards and Kidman are great as Lyra and Mrs. Coulter. The problem with this movie is the screenplay, which tries to cram four hours worth of movie into two. There are lots of non-sequiturs and illogical happenings due to over-zealous condensation of the long, complicated book. In the book, Lyra pulls the fire alarm at the concentration camp, and that's thoroughly believable; in the movie, she illogically knows how to set up the controls of the soul-cutting device so that it blows up. A long scene that begins the book is condensed so severely that it doesn't make sense -- nobody notices a broken wineglass on the floor. Important relationships between the characters are shown way too quickly to be believable. For instance, we're supposed to be touched when Lyra apologizes to Iorek Byrnison for volunteering him for single combat against the king of the bears, but instead it just comes off flat, because she's only had about 37 seconds on screen to develop her friendship with him. Likewise her relationship with Lee Scoresby is set up so quickly that you start to wonder if he's a child molester.
Review of The Golden Compass
