Rating: 🌕🌕🌕🌕🌑
Spoiler warning
There was a lot of pressure on the producers of this fantasy epic. As an award winning book series already treasured by its numerous fans, they would need to deliver the vision that we all had when reading the trilogy. And did they deliver? For me, they generally did. Whilst not everything was accurate to the books (as penned by Philip Pullman), using creative freedom their vision of the events was powerful, exciting and emotional.
The third book in the trilogy, ‘The Amber Spyglass’, and the book this final series is based on, is a pretty weird book, but enjoyable all the same. It follows protagonist Lyra (who is from another world ruled over by a sinister Magisterium), and Will, who is from our world. People in Lyra’s world have daemons, which is their soul in the physical form of an animal. Together Lyra and Will must journey between worlds and find their places in a huge battle.
There will have been some strong CGI challenges in recreating a polar bear, tiny spies (Gallivespians), mulefa (strange elephant-like creatures from another world), angels, harpies and more. And the visuals were stunning, with fantastic CGI and some great views of the Land of the Dead, the mulefa world and the final battle against Metatron’s army.
Performances were brilliant too, most notably Dafne Keen as the main protagonist, Lyra, and her parents, Marisa Coulter (Ruth Wilson) and Lord Asriel (James McAvoy). The great sacrifice of her parents for their daughter, who by this series can’t stand Coulter and Asriel for their actions, was the most powerful scene of all. When they fell down the abyss to defeat Metatron, it was heart-breaking. But beautifully recreated.
I think that Marisa Coulter is possibly the most complex character of all, and she was portrayed so well by Ruth Wilson. From being the ‘villain’ of the first book, to desperately trying to protect her daughter who hates her, we are always questioning her motives. And we come to the realisation that she wants to relinquish her awful work with the Magisterium and just see Lyra safe and well.
Seeing how Mary Malone influenced the relationship between Lyra and Will, encouraging them to come to terms with their love for one another, was shown in a really nice light and helped to bridge the understanding of how Lyra becomes Eve as the prophecy states. And their newly found relationship makes it even harder to watch them say goodbye to one another as the opening between their worlds closes forever.
Whilst the series could have been more polished and stayed closer to the book (which I think is a significant aspect of book to screen adaptations), I do think that this series will stand as an achievement.
