It is as packed with incident and excitement as a trip to Marks and SpencerвЂ™s sock department. Tom StoppardвЂ™s script must have been written backwards in Swahili to be rejected for WeitzвЂ™s box-ticking effort. The talented writer/director of About A Boy has made something humourlessly faithful to the bookвЂ™s events, but without its feeling. If you have favourite moments then rest assured they are here in some form вЂ“ but they will only match the fantasies in your head if you are a mildly depressed Belgian accountant.ДЄlmost every memorable occurrence from the source material is abbreviated into a hasty passage of exposition telling you why this bitвЂ™s important. Favourite characters are introduced to the audience with the only apparent purpose of pointing young Lyra in the direction of another po-faced oddball who might in turn direct her to the next. We hear a great deal of long-held relationships between various characters, but weвЂ™re never shown any of them. Hardly any character interacts with anyone but Lyra. Really, if youвЂ™re just going to have events described to you, why not read the book? ItвЂ™s a crying shame to see such a well-cast ensemble go to waste in what amounts to a film wholly made of cameos. As Lord Asriel, the grumpy explorer who kickstarts the quest, Daniel Craig has little to do other than scowl famously and work up to shaving his beard. Newcomer Richards does a decent job with a role largely played opposite CG animals, but struggles with lumpy dialogue. ItвЂ™s only Kidman as the villainous Mrs Coulter and Sam Elliott as good olвЂ™ boy sky captain Lee Scorseby who leave an impression, most meaningfully when saying nothing at all. The movieвЂ™s greatest disappointment is the total lack of atmosphere or scale. This is a quest that ventures from Oxford to the North Pole, yet gives the impression of being navigable at a relaxed pace in a weekend, with frequent pauses for being shot at. Weitz manages one grand sequence, a crunching duel between two polar bears (looking a lot better animated than early footage suggested), but for the filmвЂ™s climactic battle the drama escapes him. His sparsely populated frame and limited selection of interesting shots serve to make events look meek and isolated rather than epic.Though Lyra, the protagonist of the novel, doesn't know it, her life is guided by fate.

Sam elliott golden compass 2