Film: The Golden Compass PG-13

I finally got to go see The Golden Compass since it worked it's way down to the dollar theater- yay!  I really enjoyed this book series and reviewed it a while ago but, as always,  I was curious about how the story would translate to film.  I know this comes as no surprise but, the book is better than the movie. Why do they have to keep ruining fantastic books by making them into films? Because of the level of detail you get with the written word and the insight into the characters thoughts, you just finish the book more invested than you do with the film.  

The film follows the adventures of Lyra, a girl with a mysterious but unexciting past and a mysterious but vague destiny who sets out to find a friend who isn’t very interesting and an uncle that she never ends up locating. Along the way she hooks up with a variety of poorly-explained characters on a quest to stop a possible war between some unidentified factions, which threatens to destroy an infinite number of parallel worlds that you never actually get to see. The whole thing comes to a jerking halt several chapters short of where the novel ended with a kind of bashful “ummm.....sorry, sure hope we get to make the sequels so that you'll understand the story” air pervading the finale

Having said that, it is *amazing* in the special effects department. This story has a lot of animals and 'morphing' and it was really fun to watch. There were only a couple of spots that seemed less than graceful and the rest was totally fantastic.  Realistically it's worth seeing just for that stuff.

It is PG 13 for violence although there isn't much blood considering the battles.  A kid that hasn't read the books will have a very hard time following the movie.  Overall it is worth seeing but if you have to choose, stick with the books.