Good observation about the reviewers’ perspectives, mnehrling. How many adult movie reviewers read whole series of children’s or young-adults’ fantasy fiction, or even are familiar with the authors and their perspectives?
We weren’t going to see “Golden Compass”, but I’ll use the hypothetical money we wouldn’t have spent anyway to buy some wine and the second season of “Babylon 5” on DVD.
And thank you for the pretext, Mr. Pullman! I’ll say a Rosary for your soul when I’m running later.
I would say that the former's assessment has more merit than the latter.
The primary feature of the trilogy is the creation of an imaginary world whose features resemble the Christian world in a variety of superficial ways, but which upon a closer examination show that these apparently parallel resemblances are intended to confuse the unsophisticated reader about the meaning and the interrelationship of Christian phenomena.
To wit:
In the His Dark Materials books, (I'll call them HDM) there is a being who is known both as "The Authority" and also by names/titles that Christians know God by, such as "Almighty" or "Adonai." However, this being pretends to be the Creator, even though he knows there is no such thing. In other words, there is no God in HDM and the God of HDM is just a deceiver.
In HDM, people have, instead of souls or guardian angels, physical companions known as "daemons." These daemons cease to exist when the human dies. In other words, souls are a purely physical phenomenon and are mortal. When humans die in HDM, they dissolve into the universe and cease to exist.
In HDM there are angels, but they are not spiritual beings and seem more like magicians. The Authority is an HDM angel. He sends out a regent called Metatron (which in a parallel, is the name of a real angel mentioned explictly in the Jewish tradition) who rules in his stead, and Metatron's ruling apparatus is called The Magisterium or the Church, and it teaches religion as a tool of control - even though in the HDM world all religion as commonly understood is necessarily false. Certain religious leaders are referred to as Popes as well. Metatron and the Magisterium are cruel and evil. Those who rebel against The Authority, Metatron and The Magisterium are good, kind, brave, etc.
In the HDM world, humans are born completely innocent and a substance called "Dust" hardens them and injures their innocence. Essentially, this is Original Sin in reverse, cast as Original Innocence.
Among the main champions of the noble rebellion against the authority in the HDM world are two HDM angels who are homosexual intimates named Balthamos and Baruch (i.e. like the Biblical Prophet whose book is considered canonical by the Catholic Church).
In the HDM world, the Church undertakes the separation of humans from their daemons in order to enrich the The Church - in other words, the Church is stealing and destroying souls for profit.
It goes on and on.