Wow- I have to be honest and say this is the Worst movie I have seen to date. I had heard about the controversy about this movie & religion...and on a 13 hour flight from Australia back to LA- I thought it would be good to watch. I mean the cast alone- had to be decent. It also would give me a chance to watch it before I showed it to my 6 year old. WOW- was I glad I watched it first! First off- do not let you 6 year old watch this movie. IT IS NOT A SMALL CHILD'S MOVIE. A) It is scary. It has deamons in it - that are vicious. Not only that the kids are being kidnapped - stolen. Ok- what child ,and parent for that fact, would not be freaked out by that. Seriously - if I let my kids watch this movie- they would be sleeping with us for the next week. Trust me- not for elementary kids.
B) It's dumb. The movie goes very fast- and apparently leaves out the majority of the information that a person who has NOT read the book needs in order to figure out what the heck is going on. If you have read the book- then you will get it. The rest of us- just still trying to figure all the weird scary stuff in the movie by reading reviews on Amazon;)
Overall- the movie was VERY DISAPPOINTING. I am not even going to mention the entire controversy with the relgion aspect of the movie. That is another can of worms. Bottom Line - Save your precious time - and go rent Narnia. You'll be happy you did. I am still wishing I could get those 2 hours of my life back that I wasted watching this movie.

A Hollywood studio spent millions of dollars making a movie that sucks the life out of a fantastic book--what a surprise!

This movie has a fine cast, lavish production values and great special effects. All it lacks is a soul.

By all means, read the book, and the remainder of Pullman's wonderful trilogy. But don't waste your time on this pointless exercise.

"The Golden Compass" made a decent fantasy movie. Most of the characters in it were very good (I found Lee Scoresby and Iorek Byrnison to be especially likeable). It also had a very unique environment that departed from the normal medieval-ish confines of the fantasy genre. Unfortunately, the story in it seemed quite predictable and uninspiring. I never found it terribly exciting. It held my interest the entire time, but I don't see myself standing in line to wait for the sequels. "The Golden Compass" is a good work to have in your fantasy collection, but there are many better works of fantasy out there.