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First things first: as with Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix earlier this year, I’ve never read any of the novels in Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy. And where I had some prior knowledge of the Potter series because of my girlfriend, I didn’t have any family members or close friends who are fanatical readers of Pullman’s books. So I went into this one completely cold, with little idea of what to expect. Fortunately, The Golden Compass does an excellent job of explaining its universe to newcomers, and while this occasionally leads to massive chunks of expository dialogue, it’s still a lot more tolerable than those Galactic Senate debates and blathering about midichlorians that George Lucas subjected us to in The Phantom Menace. The exposition doesn't slow the film down significantly, and it stands on its own terms without requiring in-depth familiarity with the source material.

The story concerns a young girl named Lyra (Dakota Blue Richards), who lives in a parallel world very similar to our own but with a crucial difference: everyone has an animal familiar that’s an externalized manifestation of their own soul. Knowledge of other worlds and the medium used to travel between them-- a mysterious substance called Dust-- has been suppressed by the Magisterium, a fascistic organization that rules Lyra’s world and dictates the populace’s thoughts and beliefs. (Apparently, the Magisterium in the books is a satire of the Catholic Church, but there’s no specifically religious element to it in the film.) Lyra’s uncle, Lord Asriel (Daniel Craig), wants to travel to the northern lands where Dust has been sighted and try to travel between worlds; after Lyra successfully thwarts an attempt on his life, he gets the funding but refuses to take her with him. It becomes apparent that Lyra has some special role to play in a larger struggle, and that the recent disappearances of a number of children in her city are somehow connected to it. Lyra gets her chance to leave when the mysterious Mrs. Coulter (Nicole Kidman) asks the headmaster of her school to allow Lyra to become her assistant; but Mrs. Coulter isn’t what she first appears to be, and soon Lyra finds herself on a quest to save the missing children, and in particular her friend Roger (Ben Walker). She also has to make sure the Magisterium doesn’t get hold of the alethiometer, a truth-telling device given to her by the headmaster that allows her to overcome many of the challenges in her path.

I’m leaving a lot out here, not only to avoid spoiling the plot but also because it becomes increasingly complicated as the movie progresses; the second half, centered around a long trek to the north and a kingdom of talking bears, isn’t always as easy to follow as what came before. But the film remains fascinating even when it’s not entirely comprehensible, and the performances are uniformly good. Richards is superb as Lyra, making her into a fully fleshed-out human being who’s resourceful and cunning, yet still fearful and intimidated as any child thrown into such an unfamiliar situation would be. (All of the children have a natural, realistic approach to their characters, refreshing after enduring the stilted, passionless performances of Order of the Phoenix‘s young actors.) Similarly, Kidman makes Mrs. Coulter more complicated and sympathetic than your average movie villain; I’m reminded of Hayao Miyazaki’s characterization of Lady Eboshi in Princess Mononoke, because both characters are convinced of the rightness of their actions but are willing to do terrible things to achieve their goals. And even as the voice of a CG-generated bear, Ian McKellen sounds noble and grand. (Craig, unfortunately, gets very little to do after the first twenty minutes or so; maybe he’ll have a larger role in the second installment.)

The film is visually impressive as well, though there are a few areas where the special effects could have been improved-- the bears, mainly; they don’t always have the most natural movements, but then again, maybe there’s no way to make bipedal armored fighting polar bears look completely natural. Director Chris Weitz has also clearly absorbed some lessons from Terry Gilliam, as there are a number of Gilliam-esque camera angles and set designs throughout the film (there’s no way the facility where the kidnapped children are being held can’t remind a Gilliam fan of Brazil). The film moves along at a nice crisp pace-- I was especially pleased with how quickly it segues into the final battle, with none of that overwrought buildup that The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe put viewers through-- and it balances its quieter moments of character development and its frenetic moments of action quite well. Maybe there’s a lot missing from the book that would have improved the experience; but it still works just fine as a movie in its own right. It’s one of the best fantasy films I’ve seen in a long time, and I’m looking forward to the next installment.

Rating: 9/10