Written by Old Bluffer 6th Dec 2007

Iorek Byrnison, Prince of the Ice Bears, at first glance resembles one of the cute Polar bears from the Christmas Coca Cola adverts. Once you look closer though, his facial battle scars, sullen expression and heavy addiction to whiskey make it unlikely that he'd be offered that particular endorsement opportunity.

Iorek's father, the king of Svalbard, was poisoned by Ragnar, who then challenged Iorek for the throne. Iorek was beaten and exiled, and the shame of it has haunted him ever since.

When the young human girl, Lyra, meets the deposed and disgraced prince, he is eking out a living performing menial tasks in a small town, in exchange for hard liquor. In a scene that resembles an extremely basic computer game adventure puzzle, she learns that she needs to hire the bear for protection, but he won't join her without his battle armour. Luckily she is equipped with the titular "Golden Compass", which in this film means she can divine the answer to any question (as long as she submits to a repetitive CGI animation featuring lots of moving golden clockwork).
She therefore continues along the adventure game theme, selecting the conversation option of "The townspeople tricked you out of your armour and it's actually been sitting in that building all along". This triggers a cut scene where Iorek goes absolutely mental, barreling his way through the town, smashing his way into the building, somehow putting his intricate armour on (goodness only knows how) and then swearing allegiance to Lyra (for the next level of the game anyway).

Now I've been a bit harsh about the above scene, but deservedly so in my opinion, as it really is quite stilted and dumbed down. However, things do pick up once Lyra and Iorek are teamed up and heading north through the frozen tundra.

After some fairly exciting escapades, Lyra is captured and taken to where she comes face to face with King Ragnar. It is here that she concocts a rather brilliant ruse to trick the enormous bear.

Now in the wonderfully realised world of Phillip Pullman's novel, all humans have daemons, or magical animals, whom they have an utterly unbreakable bond with. In fact, to all intents and purposes, they are your very soul - lose your daemon and you would lose your life. Well Lyra is a sharp girl, and has remembered an important snippet of information about Ragnar, in that he craves a daemon of his own. Ice Bears do not have daemons, and Ragnar is jealous of the humans because of it.

So, she boldly tells her own daemon, Pan, to hide out of sight, and informs Ragnar that she herself is a daemon, joined to none other than his old enemy, Iorek. She slyly says that she is not happy with this arrangement, and would far prefer to be joined to the richer, more powerful king. This can only be achieved if Ragnar kills Iorek in fair combat.
This appeals to the king on several levels. Not only would he gain a unique daemon in the form of a human (all other daemons in the world are animals), but he would be stealing it from his old rival.

Iorek in the meantime, has ran all the way to Svalbard, to his almost certain death at the paws of the King's Panserbjørn soldiers. However, once he hears of Lyra's audacious ruse, he is rejuvenated. He will finally get to face his old nemesis, avenge his father, rescue Lyra and regain his honour, all in one fell swoop. The only catch is that he needs to defeat a larger, stronger, better armoured and less tired opponent.

The two mighty bears rear up, and clash together like two icebergs. Surrounding them, the onlooking bears roar their approval. Iorek soon gets his old and tarnished battle helmet smashed from his head, and it is soon apparent that Ragnar is the more powerful fighter. After several more exchanges, Iorek is badly limping from a savage bite, and takes several clubbing swipes to his head that he is unable to answer.

"Is that all?!" mocks Ragnar, renewing his assault on the prone prince. But Iorek is not finished yet, and throws a colossal blow at the gloating King, actually ripping his lower jaw from his face. As Ragnar sways in shock on his hind legs, Iorek leaps forwards, teeth bared, and rips out his throat.

"Yes, that is all." He declaims, and his new subjects roar their acceptance of him as the rightful heir.



Old Bluffer's Thoughts on the Film

The Golden Compass definitely achieved its aim of being a thoroughly entertaining family film, that young fans of the novel will no doubt enjoy immensely. It falls short of being a masterpiece though, mainly through its overly fast pacing. Whilst not nearly as bad in this respect as Eragon, it still had to pack so much into its two hour screenplay that few characters had time to be established as they deserved. The script was also a disappointment, with stilted dialogue being used clumsily to try and fill in a wealth of backstory from the novel. In some respects this was inevitable, but I would have preferred more subtlety, even if it risked confusing people who hadn't read the books.

On the plus side, the acting is solid throughout, with the girl playing Lyra giving a standout performance. The special effects are also very good indeed, putting Narnia to shame with the CGI creatures, and managing to convey some very stylish scenes - for example the airships are beautifully designed.

Best of all though is the story itself, which only Phillip Pullman can take credit for. I suspect he's a little disappointed with the big screen version of his book, but it was unfortunately never going to get a full Lord of the Rings treatment.

Personally I'm hoping for an extended DVD with 30 minutes or so extra footage.



Special Mention

...goes to what must be one of the worst end credits theme songs I've heard in many a year. Kate Bush wails out "Lyra" incessantly, interspersed with some terrible lyrics: