Most costly film ever - any cop?

When a movie arrives with the "most expensive film ever made" tag on its shoulders, we expect to be blown away by the results.

So it comes as something as an underwhelming anticlimax to discover that The Golden Compass is, after all, just another fantasy movie.

Yes, the computer imagery is spectacular. Yes, the magical fantasy worlds conjured up are a feast for the eyes. And yes, Dakota Blue Richards is an undoubted star in the making as our heroine, in her first-ever big-screen role.

But a fantasy film such as this needs to sweep us off our feet on such a fast-paced ride that we lose ourselves in a world we don't need to understand, and become emotionally attached to a group of characters who have rapidly turned into our new best pals.

It's based on the first of Philip Pullman's series of best selling and rather religiously controversial books, His Dark Materials.

In a parallel universe far away, young Lyra Belacqua (Richards) is special.

So special, in fact, that her college tutors have entrusted her with the last remaining Golden Compass - a mystical device which has the ability to tell the truth.

One of these truths includes unequivocal proof that other universes really do exist - much to the dismay of the dogmatic Magisterium, the rulers who treat such talk as heresy and have destroyed all remaining compasses.

Beautiful witch Serafina Pekala (Eva Green) speaks of a prophecy about a child who is "to decide the war that is to come", and many believe Lyra, in her quest to discover the truth with the help of the compass, could be the chosen one who lights the blue touch paper on a bloodbath.

In Lyra's world, humans are bound to a reflection of their soul called a "daemon", which takes the form of an animal.

Her globetrotting uncle Lord Asriel (Daniel Craig) has defied the Magisterium to head north with his panther daemon in search of the truth, and Lyra follows in his footsteps with the help of mysterious Mrs Coulter

(Kidman).

But Mrs Coulter isn't all that she appears, and Lyra and her own daemon soon need help from a colourful array of characters to escape with their lives.

The youngster forges remarkable friendships with a bear called Lorek Byrnison (voiced by McKellen) and aeronaut Lee Scoresby (Elliott) en route to an icy land where giant polar bears are king, humans aren't safe, and life-changing secrets are lurking.

Lots of promise, but the story fails to build sufficiently strong emotional bonds between the sparky, resourceful heroine and her menagerie of mates who, during the opening quarter of the film, are introduced to us in little more than a two-dimensional role-call.

Kidman hams it up deliciously as the enigmatic, scene-stealing Mrs Coulter, McKellen's voiceover injects a powerful blend of power and emotion into the giant bear, while Craig is even colder than his 007 incarnation as the ruthless explorer Asriel.

But Richards, whose character has many similarities to Anakin Skywalker in the Star Wars saga as the young "special one" who holds the destiny of worlds in her hand, shines the brightest.

With little competition at the box office before Christmas, The Golden Compass should prove irresistible to family audiences - the visual feast of daemons will distract the youngest of viewers, who may struggle to keep a grip on what's going on.

There are definite atheist undertones, but nothing to merit the kind of vocal protests the film has received in America.

The placard-waving protesters are on a fruitless mission anyway . . .because the final act of this film is such a blatant set-up for a sequel that it's inevitable.

* Safe to say, it's not my favourite film of the year . . . my choice in The Bourne Ultimatum. Agree? Disagree? I'm currently compiling a Shropshire Star readers' poll of the best and worst films you've seen at the cinema this year. E-mail me - starfeatures@shropshirestar.co.uk - with your offerings.