My family saw this movie on sneak preview night...boy do I wish we'd saved our money. The book is great, I loved every page of it. The movie does NOT do it justice. Both my son and I have read the book and were really disappointed with the MANY changes that were made. While the actual content is the same in most parts of the movie, the timeline is completely rearranged. The ending is completely different from the ending in the book. When this is done to help with the flow of the movie I can understand it but this movie felt all chopped up and did not flow well. In my mind, the changes that were made were made unnecessarily. My husband, who has not read the book, was totally confused. The movie made no sense to him. The CGI was good but that's the only positive thing I can say about this disaster of a movie! Please save your money or better yet, use it to buy the book if you haven't already read it!

I thought the effects, the story line and the acting were superb!. However, I myself am a Christian and I believe that the whole deamon thing and your soal dying when you die is a bit sacreligous. That aside, overall it was a good movie. Not something I want my 9 yr old to see though. Have you ever wondered why PG movies should be PG-13 and why PG-13 movies should be R movies? Today's society has sure changed things. I don't like to bring my son to see a movie anymore unless I've seen it first to make sure it is suitable for him to watch.

I caught the sneak of this on Saturday night and was hugely disappointed. The special effects and art direction are great, and even most of the actors are pretty good, but that's about it. The movie has an extremely jumbled and rushed feeling with absolutely no character development. Characters in the movie will suddenly feel all warm and fuzzy about other characters that they just met a few seconds before. The script lacks cohesion and flow, and much of the dialogue ends up sounding kind of ridiculous and laughable. Strangely enough, the way that they removed references to the "church" didn't bother me at all, but that may have been simply because I was struggling to watch the movie anyway. To make matters worse, they removed the ending from the book and the movie ends abruptly because of it, although that's probably for the best. I only hope that the movie does just well enough to greenlight the sequel so they can make up for this misfire. These books deserve much better.

Ok...the CGI effects are amazing, but the flick is just bad...plain and simple. The characters never really develope, there are gaping holes in the story. Rather than produce a good movie it seemed like the film makers are just trying to appeal to the "edgy rebel without a clue" types . I guess I'm just not cool enough to say that I liked a bad movie just to make myself feel worldly". Nobody really liked this movie, they are just saying so because it makes them feel "hip" and anti-establishment. Read the positive reviews. Most don't actually say anything positive about THE GOLDEN COMPASS. They can't...the movie is really bad. The reviewers are just condescending and contemptuous of anyone who offers an opinion that differs from their own. Then they use buzz phrases like "thought provoking" and claim to be intellectuals. Little is said about the movie itself. Well I paid my dollar and I took my chances...I wish I could get my dollar back.