Weitz manages one grand sequence, a crunching duel between two polar bears (looking a lot better animated than early footage suggested), but for the filmвЂ™s climactic battle the drama escapes him. This is a quest that ventures from Oxford to the North Pole, yet gives the impression of being navigable at a relaxed pace in a weekend, with frequent pauses for being shot at. The movieвЂ™s greatest disappointment is the total lack of atmosphere or scale. ItвЂ™s only Kidman as the villainous Mrs Coulter and Sam Elliott as good olвЂ™ boy sky captain Lee Scorseby who leave an impression, most meaningfully when saying nothing at all. Newcomer Richards does a decent job with a role largely played opposite CG animals, but struggles with lumpy dialogue. As Lord Asriel, the grumpy explorer who kickstarts the quest, Daniel Craig has little to do other than scowl famously and work up to shaving his beard. ItвЂ™s a crying shame to see such a well-cast ensemble go to waste in what amounts to a film wholly made of cameos. Really, if youвЂ™re just going to have events described to you, why not read the book? Hardly any character interacts with anyone but Lyra. We hear a great deal of long-held relationships between various characters, but weвЂ™re never shown any of them. Favourite characters are introduced to the audience with the only apparent purpose of pointing young Lyra in the direction of another po-faced oddball who might in turn direct her to the next.

If you have favourite moments then rest assured they are here in some form вЂ“ but they will only match the fantasies in your head if you are a mildly depressed Belgian accountant.ДЄlmost every memorable occurrence from the source material is abbreviated into a hasty passage of exposition telling you why this bitвЂ™s important. The talented writer/director of About A Boy has made something humourlessly faithful to the bookвЂ™s events, but without its feeling. Tom StoppardвЂ™s script must have been written backwards in Swahili to be rejected for WeitzвЂ™s box-ticking effort. It is as packed with incident and excitement as a trip to Marks and SpencerвЂ™s sock department. The key theme of the failings of organised religion is given only mumbling lip-service, and PullmanвЂ™s flood of magical creativity is turned into a heavy mist of confusing silliness. Where Jackson wrestled a literary doorstop, packed with ideas both profound and banal, into an elegant and heart-thumping trilogy, Chris Weitz has started his own would-be threesome with a graceless, distracted plod through one of the most interesting and incendiary novels of the past fifteen years. Not unless you think that the secret to the success of Peter JacksonвЂ™s masterful trilogy was a very long walk and a selection of characters named after remote villages in Uzbekistan. Ordinarily this wouldnвЂ™t be a fair comparison, but since New Line made it themselves with the movieвЂ™s first trailer, letвЂ™s address one thing from the off: The Golden Compass is not a new Lord Of The Rings.

The golden compass