The Golden Compass

also titled "over hyped and under done."
I read the books as an adult. I did not catch or did not remember the Atheist themes. When all the broo-ha-ha came out, I went back and did a little research and was reminded of much of the story which I found uncomfortable reading at the time, (the intercision and it's effect on the children) but did not have the smarts to realize was a sort of Atheist hidden plot.

So anyway, I found the internet references where the author freely admits he is an atheist and the book is written for that reason.

So when it came out at Christmas, I was somewhat dismayed. It's admitted by the author to be atheist in design, and even in our material culture, isn't it pushing it to put it out at Christmas time? So I wanted nothing to do with it.

Then I decided that, by ordering it on Netflix, there was zero profit to it and I could decide what I thought about it.

Well, duh. If I had been paying, I would have been mightily disappointd. I mentioned to MyFella that we could turn it off, but he wanted to get through to the end. I guess in the hopes that something, anything, would happen. For me, it did not. Even the James Bond hottie wasn't enough to make this happen. Nor Nicole. It was all rather. . . pointless.

You have fabulous CGI graphics. You have handsome Daniel Craig, you have Nicole Kidman, you have that kid putting on a fine performance. And you have it all tied together with . . . ?

OK, OK. From my point of view, where in the world was it? If you wanted to push through some Orphan Annie child, sure, they did that. If you wanted to push through a subtle but distinct Atheist point of view, well, they must have yanked most of that out. The daemons come across as much more like pets than your soul or spirit. The Nicole character, so ruthless? Nah. I've seen her better. Though two thumbs up for that behind-her-watching-her-walk-in-the-slinky-dress. That was cool. But that was the best part of her performance. Daniel? Nah. Sort of missing from the movie. I'm sorry. It was not a particularly good Christmas movie, family movie, childlike fantasy movie. It wasn't a particularly good Atheist message movie. It just wasn't a particularly good movie.