So, as a big fan of the books, I'm fairly split on the outcome of the movie, but in the end I think my thumb points more downwards than upwards.
The film deliver the things I wanted in a massive war bear fight and Sam Elliott as a aeronaut cowboy. Check. Also, it stayed fairly true to the books in that it did not invent any new scenes, and kept very close to the movement of the original story.
Having read the books, I knew what was going on... but I have to grant that anyone who hasn't would be hopelessly lost as Lyra moves from one culture/society to the next. Jordan College is fairly well established, by after that the movie simply moves too fast to get to know any of these other places. The Gyptians, the Bolvars, the war bears, all detailed cultures get basically no treatment in the movie. Even Ms. Coulter's high society gets very little play.
The movie is rescued from terribleness by its particularly strong casting. Elliott, Kidman, Craig... but even here I have a gripe. It seems obvious to me that New Line was so intent on creating a new fantasy hit that they artificially tethered the movie to Harry Potter and LotR in rather obvious and stupid ways. Jordan College, in a dinner scene, strongly resembles Hogwarts. Christopher Lee shows up for the briefest of cameos. And I'm pretty sure that an original voice actor's performance as Iorek was overwritten in favor of Ian McKellan. As a fan of the source material, I can't help but feel a bit betrayed by New Line's shameless hit-mongering.
SPOILER, sort of
Finally, there is a fatal, fatal flaw that both fans of the books and anyone who sees the movie cannot fail to notice. The ending. In the books, the ending is dramatic and powerful, as Asriel (who is not at all a good guy, after all he is playing the part of Satan in Pullman's version of Paradise Lost) sacrifices Lyra's friend Roger to open rifts to other worlds. Lyra is betrayed and awakened to this new reality. It's an ending that would have served as both a cliffhanger for the next film and closure to her adventures in her own world.
Instead, the movie ends several chapters earlier, with Lyra and Roger in Scoresby's airship, heading north towards the lights and essentially begging for a sequel. This is a wimpy, awful ending. Unforgivable, I think.
And it's unfortunate, because Compass is without doubt the most cinematic and much better positioned for a transition to film than the other two books. I don't think the director deserves to do the rest of the books, and in my mind the only thing that could rescue this film is releasing a longer version (the movie is under two hours, it needed 30-40 minutes more all around) that includes the ending from the books.
Probably won't happen, but there is a kind of precedent with Oliver Stone's Alexander. After the first version bombed so bad, Stone recut a longer version that most critics agreed was significantly better. And if the movie 'bombs' (it may not meet expectations, but it will probably recoup its expenses), maybe there will be enough groundswell of fan disapproval and incentive to release a longer, better version on DVD.
