I give it an "A." THE GOLDEN COMPASS was scary, but scary-funny. There were fights and polar bears.

THE GOLDEN COMPASS is said to have athiest themes but the only recognizable way it's anti-religion is that it's God-awful.

I can only assume the book "His Dark Materials: Northern Lights" that THE GOLDEN COMPASS is adapted from is marvelous considering the A-listers that signed up to participate in this film: Oscar winners Nicole Kidman, Ian McKellan, and Alexander Desplat among them. However, the movie is a confusing and convoluted story that solves its problems with some convenient improbability. The story is extremely hard to follow with several instances so preposterous we and others in the theater were laughing at moments not meant to be comical, including (in all seriousness) a whiskey drinking polar bear, a gun-toting and firing twangy cowboy-aeronaut Sam Elliott among all the British accents, and a witch who asks the 12 year old lead character to prove her ability to find the truth by telling her which of the men on board a ship used to be her lover (yeah... seriously). Violence with guns, lots of death (although not shown in a gruesome way), and fighting animals are prevalent in the film.

The saving grace of THE GOLDEN COMPASS is that we were all so confused we talked about it the whole way home instead of listening to the radio or some other distraction. For kids 7 and older.