A crushing disappointment for fans and a scuppered opportunity for a cinematic event. That the first book has been so mishandled doesn’t bode well for the (already greenlit) more complicated ones to come.

Almost nothing remains at the end – not a glimmer of mystical inquisition, not a teasing loose-end of space-time speculation – to lure a Pullmanite towards a sequel.

In the end The Golden Compass is another expensive mishmash of CGI 'magic' and widescreen spectacle: well-acted, as you would expect, but more or less empty of anything to provoke the curiosity and intelligence of a young audience.

Maybe we were all expecting too much. While competent, The Golden Compass joins that catalogue of so-so Narnia/Potter wannabes whose members include Lemony Snicket, Eragon and the recent Stardust.

It packs enough fun and fantasy to keep the kid in you entertained and engaged. And we can always hope that the sequel will try to tackle some of the fascinating and more complex ideas from the book.

The actors can hardly move among all the computer graphics, much less express any emotion or spontaneity; there's no sense of wonder.

A movie with characters constantly explaining arcane concepts and only rarely doing anything about them.

Covering too much ground in too little time leaves the film feeling shallow and inchoate.

An enormous scrap at the end, involving witches and warlocks, does little to illuminate, or leaven, this pudding.

...rushes headlong through many of the important nuances of its source material.