Every few years a film comes out that Christians jump all over. A few years ago it was The Da Vinci Code. The film was fodder for conspiracy theorists, but everyone else was bored to tears by it, and the movie ended up tanking after its initial release. Most critics justifiably ripped the movie because it was really, really, really stupid. Despite its mostly cold reception stateside, it did do quite well overseas.

Fast forward to now, and we get another controversial film to boycott and wring our hands over, The Golden Compass. Philip Pullman’s book makes no bones about its desire to basically destroy Christianity, and from what I’ve heard, the “theology” in the movie is watered down when compared to its source material. Having seen the film, I can assure you that the movie is indeed out to destroy God and make Christians feel dumb. I’ll provide you some basic ideas that the film presents, so you don’t have to waste ten bucks on this film.

Essentially, dust (sin) entered the world and dust provides you with knowledge, truth, and freedom. The Magisterium (Church) doesn’t want you to have dust. The reasons that the Magisterium doesn’t want dust around are never made clear, and the first hour of the film rambles on with very little character development, and some truly bizarre ideas. I think what shocked me the most was the outright promotion of kids disobeying their parents, disobeying adults, and spitting (literally) on authority. Never mind that God is referred to as The Authority. The film also promotes the old humanist idea of do-whatever-you-want-as-long-as-it doesn’t-hurt-anyone-else. (Other than God or the Church.) Despite this, the film not once deals with the consequences of choosing bad over good, and it’s very vague on the subject.

Despite the clear anti-God agenda, there are some truly epic set pieces, and the film spends about half an hour being really awesome with a fantastic fight sequence between two bears. It’s too bad the awesomeness is sandwiched on both sides by way too much dialogue, way too much agenda, and not nearly enough wonder and amazement. I’ve really been a big fan of Chris Weitz, as About A Boy is one of my all-time favorite films. However, he clearly wasn’t the right choice to direct this film. Even if you took out all the anti-God stuff, the movie still doesn’t quite work.

I’ve never done this with a movie before, but based on the anti-God message alone, I cannot recommend this movie to anyone. I do feel like we need to discuss it, though, and I think boycotts are unnecessary. That said, spend your ten bucks somewhere else... or just send it to me.