[zencat]

If "The Golden Compass" wasn't an stealth advance guard for evangelical atheism, mainstream film critics would be dismissing it with a sniff and mutttering "how derivative" as they gave it Two Thumbs Down.

I disagree. The LOTR was heardled by critics in all three films. The story is from, Tolkien, a known devout Catholic, that converted C.S. Lewis to Christianity. The story is about the pure destruction caused of evil. About absolutes, (the ring WILL corrupt you).

The third film in the series was nominated for as many Academy awards as any movie ever, and won best picture.

My bet is that the Golden Compass won't even be nominated. And I don't think it will even be a financial success. I mean watch the trailer, it's just simply awful. And that's supposedly the best parts to entice you to go see it.

[VOA]

I disagree. The LOTR was heardled by critics in all three films.

That's OK.
I've a limited sample size, but even at the conservative Christian
college I attended in the mid 1970s, there were LOTR fans.
And, despite the "no drugs, no alcohol" policy of the place,
I'd say about 1/2 of the LOTR fans were doing a fine job of
violating the policy (and avoiding detection, so they were no dummies).

When mainstream critics lauded LOTR, my guess was that most of
them were the friendly dopers I knew in the 1970s...only now
it's decades later and they have film-critic jobs.
And/Or they were smart enough to see a film-series-tsunami and
decided to get out of the way and just join the applauding public.

Yeah, that's no statistical analysis...just an impression from
"back in the day".

[Fish_Keeper]

As of this posting, this film has only 36% positive review rating on RottenTomatos.com. (Granted this is only counting 11 reviewers so far.) http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/his_dark_materials_the_golden_compass/