The Golden Compass should be fun, but it rarely is. It should sweep you away, but it rarely does. For a film suffused with magic, it is, regrettably, far from magical.

Lyra Belacqua (newcomer Dakota Blue Richards) thinks she is an ordinary girl growing up in the not so ordinary hallowed halls of Oxford College, under the charge of her frequently absent, explorer uncle, Lord Asriel (Daniel Craig). But this is not our Oxford, but one in an infinite number of parallel dimensions to our own. Lyra’s world, while sharing some striking similarities to ours, is, in fact, very different. In her universe, all humans are accompanied by their own, person daemon (pronounced DEE-mon), physical manifestations of their souls that assume the shapes of animals. While children are young and unpredictable, the daemons have the ability to shapeshift at will between any number of various animals. But as the child reaches adulthood, their daemon locks into whatever animal best represents their companion’s personality.

Lyra and her daemon (voiced by Freddie Highmore) are thrust in a perilous adventure when she overhears a conversation about a magical particle referred to only as “Dust,” that represents the fabric binding her world to the next. The Magisterium, the ruling power of her world, wishes to suppress all knowledge of the particle and will stop at nothing to destroy it and all who know about it. When her uncle is taken hostage while looking for Dust in the vast Artic expanse of the North, Lyra sets outs to find him, armed only with the Alethiometer — or Golden Compass — an instrument that points not to directions in space, but to absolute truth in others. It has the ability to see into the future and into the very intent of people’s hearts.

As the feral, headstrong girl is catapulted into the heart of a titanic struggle for control of her world, she encounters wondrous things beyond her wildest dreams — sea-faring Gyptians, talking polar bears (the voiced of Sir Ian McKellen), flying witches (Eva Green), Gobblers who kidnap children, and the beautiful Marisa Coulter (Nicole Kidman) who hides a secret that will unlock both Lyra’s past and future — a future in which she is prophesied to be the key to her universe’s very survival.

The Golden Compass is a film of boundless imagination sumptuously realized. Based on the first book of the award-winning “His Dark Materials” trilogy by Philip Pullman, The Golden Compass has been shepherded to the screen by writer/director Chris Weitz, best known for helming the original American Pie and About a Boy.

The film comes with the usual fantasy baggage — an intricate and knotty mythology, a plethora of characters, and worlds with odd, unrememberable names and peoples. Unfortunately, the mythology will prove confusing to those not familiar with the books. And the sheer number of main characters means that several principles don’t get anything resembling proper screentime.

The special effects, on the other hand, are staggering. The Golden Compass represents the next generation of computer generated digital magic. Here are utterly convincing animals, covered in fur and feathers and moving with a realistic fluidity never before seen.

For those who are unfamiliar with the novels, do not go into The Golden Compass expecting something akin to this summer’s light and enthralling Stardust. This is a far darker, more serious, and more violent film than you might think. This is The Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter in medius rez, trapped at the height of the conflict without the benefit of the lighter touch that a longer introduction would allow.

Much has been made of the controversy surrounding The Golden Compass. Many Christians see the film as an attack on their faith, and author Pullman, an avowed atheist, has alluded to penning the books as a direct literary rebuttal to C.S. Lewis’ “Chronicles of Narnia,” which he views as religious propaganda. (This despite the fact that the two series’ both feature children facing mature moral quandaries, talking animals, religious allegories, parallel universes in distress, and begin with a young girl hiding in a wardrobe!). Through one of his characters, Pullman has described Christianity as “a very powerful and convincing mistake” and has crafted a world in which God, alluded to as the Authority, is a merciless tyrant and His Church, zealously suppressing and controlling the actions and intentions of humankind, is the instrument of his oppression. The heroes in these novels are those intent on overthrowing the Church’s control.

However, New Line Cinema, cognizant of the fact that the story’s anti-religious themes would make the film financially untenable in the U.S., has diluted the overt references to any specific religious group, reframing them in euphemisms. Whereas a pre-Enlightenment “Church” appears as the primary malevolence in the novels, it is here recast as The Magisterium with the thinnest of disguises. Those fearing an anti-Christian agenda are left instead with an assault on the use of authority structures to oppress the weak and dogmatism in general.

Though The Golden Compass concludes, it does not end. If you were one of those who complained that the individual The Lord of the Rings and The Matrix installments could not stand on their own, but were instead designed episodically with their lack of satisfying resolutions pointing the way to the inevitable sequel, you’ll find more of the same here.

The Golden Compass is too dark to be enchanting, too serious to be beguiling, and too violent to be appropriate for young children.

© Copyright 2007 Brandon Fibbs. All rights reserved.