The Golden Compass (2007)

The Golden Compass (2007)

Release Date: 7 December 2007 (USA)
Quality: DVDRip.XviD
Language: English | Icelandic | Russian | French
Runtime: 113 min
Director: Chris Weitz
Company: New Line Cinema
Movie Info: IMDb
Cast: Nicole Kidman, Daniel Craig, Dakota Blue Richards, Ben Walker, Freddie Highmore, Ian McKellen
Genre: Adventure | Family | Fantasy
Watch: Trailer
Size: 700MB

Plot: In a parallel universe, young Lyra Belacqua journeys to the far North to save her best friend and other kidnapped children from terrible experiments by a mysterious organization.

Lyra Belacqua (Dakota Blue Richards) is (ostensibly) an orphan living at Jordan College in the Oxford of an alternate universe. In Lyra's world, every person is accompanied by a daemon, a physical representation of their soul in animal form. Because she is young, Lyra's daemon, Pantalaimon (voice: Freddie Highmore) -- Pan, for short -- can change his shape to appear as any animal he chooses. He most often appears as an ermine, or at need a moth or a cat. Adults' daemons settle in to one shape and don't change.

Lyra overhears an interview between the Master of Jordan College (Jack Shepherd) and Fra Pavel (Simon McBurney), a representative of the powerful and sinister religious body called the Magisterium. They're discussing an expedition to the far north planned by Lyra's uncle, Lord Asriel (Daniel Craig); Asriel wants to study a mysterious substance called Dust that seems to enter Lyra's world from parallel universes. Fra Pavel pressures the Master to withhold his support from Lord Asriel's expedition. The Master refuses, so, when left alone in the room, Fra Pavel poisons a decanter of Tokay wine that has been decanted specially for Lord Asriel.

Lord Asriel soon arrives (accompanied by his daemon, a snow leopard), and pours himself a glass of the poisoned Tokay, but Lyra emerges from her hiding place to stop him from drinking it: she dashes the glass to the floor where it shatters. Lord Asriel sends her back to eavesdrop on the meeting that is about to begin. The Master and fellows of Jordan College, plus Fra Pavel, convene to hear about Lord Asriel's proposed expedition and research on Dust, which they agree to fund. Asriel is sure that Dust is connected with a means to get from one universe to other parallel universes. Pavel tells Asriel that talk of Dust is heresy.

Even before we meet Lyra, boys and girls have been disappearing, snatched off the streets. The children call the kidnappers Gobblers. Lyra and her friend Roger (Ben Walker) promise one another that if either is caught, the other will come to the rescue. That night, while Lyra is at dinner being introduced to Mrs. Coulter (Nicole Kidman), Roger and another friend, Billy Costa (Charlie Rowe), are taken by the Gobblers.

At the dinner, Lyra is seated immediately across the table from the Master when Mrs. Coulter arrives, accompanied by her daemon, a golden monkey. The Master and all the scholars are evidently in awe of her. Mrs. Coulter takes a seat right next to Lyra, who is most impressed with her new acquaintance and agrees eagerly when Mrs. Coulter says she is also planning a trip to the far north, and proposes that Lyra come along as her assistant. The Master is evidently forced (by Mrs. Coulter's influence in high places) to agree.

In the morning, just before Lyra's departure, the Master comes to Lyra's little upper room in college and gives her a strange golden instrument called an alethiometer, or "golden compass". He tells her that it is capable of telling the truth, but he can't tell her much about how it works. He admonishes her to keep the alethiometer to herself and above all not to let Mrs. Coulter know that she has it.