One would think that a simple children's picture would hold no serious terror within it...but the horrifying fact is that New Line Cinema(desperate for another Lord of the Rings after a year of box office failures) is standing by to make two more sequels to Compass, should this initial outing be successful.

     I plead with you now dear readers, for the love of humanity and all its future generations, to do whatever you can to not surrender to New Line. Don't go see this!

     Based upon the trilogy "His Dark Materials"(a reference to Milton's "Paradise Lost") by author Philip Pullman, The Golden Compass follows the story of an orphan girl named Lyra Belac-qua(Dakota Blue RIchards) and her search to follow her uncle, the adventurer/explorer Lord Asriel(Daniel Craig) to the North Pole as well as find her friend Roger(Ben Walker) who has been kidnapped by mysterious beings known as The Gobblers. Before we get down to the meat of the story(and there's not much, it's mainly gristle), a quick word about young Ms. Richards.

     First of all, Ms. Richards is actually a fairly good actress for someone so young, and who is making her acting debut in this film. She carries off the role of Lyra with authenticity and com-plete believability. The problem is that like the hated Peyton from The Game Plan and other recent cinematic drudgery, the character of Lyra(as written by director Chris Weitz) is at first an unlikeable spoiled and petulant brat. By the time Lyra gets around to showing some sympathetic qualities, it's too late to invest any empathetic emotion for her. Also, and I know this is an odd quibble, we already have the unearthly marvelous Dakota Fanning...I call a moratorium, this instant, on anyone else in Hollywood being named Dakota(or for their parents to name them as such)!

     Unlike the original 1995 novel, set in a semi-futuristic England on an alternate Earth where The Reformation never took place is ruled over by a tyrannical version of the Catholic Church, the film places a similarly iron-fisted Magisterium as the ruler of all thinking and ideology. Lord Asriel intends to travel to the North Pole to investigate the possibility of crossing over to a parallel Earth and obtaining proof of the existence of Dust(in the book, elementary particles which help form the basis for the universe's existence; in the movie, never clearly defined). The Magisterium vehemently objects to Asriel's trip, going so far as attempting to first poison him and then--when Lyra herself foils the deed--placing Mrs. Marisa Coulter(Nicole Kidman) in charge of doing in Asriel and keeping watch over Lyra, about whom there are vaguely defined prophesies.

     This is the main problem with The Golden Compass: the rules of the game are never clearly defined, which does no service to the audience that invests its time to watch events unfold. Characters--such as the brilliant Christopher Lee as the Magisterium's First High Councilor--are randomly introduced, given almost absolutely nothing to do, and are sent back into storage. Other characters are focused on too much, such as the outcast talking polar bear prince Iorek Byrnison(voiced by Ian McKellen, who at the studio's whim, replaced fellow British actor Nonso Anozie) and his quest to reclaim his throne, a sidestory that without a doubt should have been left for the subsequent films. Other characters such as the Gyptian wanderers and "aeronaut" cowboy Lee Scoresby(Sam Elliott) are virtually superfluous and add nothing to the tale. With so many unnecessary characters and so much ground to cover without reason, The Golden Compass goes seriously off-point, its needle spinning wildly and without purpose.

     The universe of The Golden Compass itself is illogical on al-most every point, even for a fantasy realm. Although humans on this other-Earth have their souls existing outside their bodies in the shapes of independently intelligent and communicative animal or insect creatures known as Daemons, during combat opponents tend to strike down the physical human body, rather than destroy the soul-shell itself(although since the shell bursts into cute little faerie dust when the body expires, this might be a moot point). There is obvious and tangible magic in this world, since a race of witches led by Serafina Pekkala(played by Casino Royale's Eva Green) flies around at will...yet for some reason, the non-magical Magisterium holds absolute power. Even the devices of transportation in this world seem to have little functionality. Like the futurists of the 20's and 30's, who envisioned zeppelins as the almighty air couriers/ferries for all time to come, Weitz has Kidman's Coulter use one as her pri-mary mode of travel to the Pole. This is a bizarre realm indeed, and seemingly(for both book and film) thrown together very hodge-podge, in an attempt to emulate some of the greater classics like Lord of the Rings or The Chronicles of Narnia(a universe which author Pullman detests) by just throwing con-cepts onto a wall and seeing what sticks. It doesn't work, and in fact when the revelation of who Lyra's parents truly are arrives, it's a groan inducer. The revelation is something which surely must have been ripped off from an old page in George Lucas' notepad when he first wrote Star Wars. The ol' Jedi master should sue to get his intellectual property back, maligned and twisted though it may be.

     There are many other fatal flaws and missteps along the way, of course(including an absolutely craptacular end theme song by Kate Bush, who obviously phoned it in--collect, no less), including such gems as having the entire second half of the movie set in the North Pole, yet not one person has frosted breath coming out of their mouth! No less than 5 effects comp-anies on a $250 million production, and someone forgot to put breath coming out of the actors' mouths? That's some high quality attention to detail, kids. Why not just put signs up saying "Quiet on the set! No disturbing the actors while we shoot on the set! Soundstage!"

     When he was originally filming King Kong, director Peter Jackson allowed Chris Weitz(and we can see now why he didn't receive a credit for the work he did on the original American Pie) to visit the set in order to see how a big-budget film is done. The lesson backfired, and Weitz originally quit the project, over-whelmed by the "technical challenges". After disagreements with the replacement director, New Line managed to lure Weitz back. What a shame that in the interim, Weitz apparently didn't learn from his mistakes. The lack of self-confidence in his own leader-ship skills and vision shows throughout, and drags what would have been an interesting--if not memorable--film into the mire of overbudgeted cinematic corpses which are becoming an all-too-familiar blight upon the silver screen.