Ummmm. Wow. I really enjoyed Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy. They were an excellent read, and the anti-Christianity sentiments in them that were bubbling just below the surface didn't bother me at all. Before watching the film I found it hard to believe that these sentiments would make it onto the big screen, but frankly it was hard to tell from watching the film. The plot of the books is followed, for sure, but there seemed to be a whole load of explanatory plot missing from the film. I really do think that if I hadn't read the books prior to seeing the film, I wouldn't have had a clue what was going on. So much explanation, plot, interest, excitement, enjoyment was missing from the film that I found it really hard to watch.

My impression was that the book had been read by whoever wrote the script, and they just thought 'that bit's good, and that bit, and that bit. The bits inbetween not so good. So let's just omit them.' No explanations, no exposition and as a result really not much of a film. In conclusion, read the books. They're very good. Don't watch the film. It's very poor.