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There's an old saying that no publicity is bad publicity and never has it been truer than for the new fantasy epic 'The Golden Compass'.

Set to replace Harry Potter on religious watch lists the world over, the film adaptation of avowed atheist Philip Pullman's 'Northern Lights' novel has been making waves long before its actual release. Condemned by the Catholic Church on an international scale and the ACDP on a local one, this not-so-little movie with some interesting spiritual overtones has pretty much been tried, condemned and executed before the first patron even bought a ticket.

And honestly, it's hard to see why. Many of the religious themes present in the book have been removed or sanitised to some degree, leaving you with what is essentially a lovely tale about courage, friendship and fortitude in the face of terrible danger that just happens to be set in a parallel universe.

In this world, where people's souls exist in animal companions known as 'daemons', Lord Asriel (played by a criminally underused Daniel Craig) has discovered what he believes to be a way to travel to other universes using the mysterious phenomenon known as 'Dust'. Opposed by the Magesterium, a group of staunch old men intent on controlling the actions of the population, Asriel begins a journey to the northern reaches of the world in an attempt to find out more about Dust.

Meanwhile his 11-year-old orphaned niece, Lyra, a rebellious, carefree child is targeted by Marisa Coulter (Nicole Kidman), a mysterious woman with ominous ties to the Magesterium. Armed with an alethiometer (or Golden Compass), which can be used to find the truth, Lyra is plunged into a dark adventure involving missing children, dangerous experiments and a quest to find the origin and meaning of the mysterious Dust.

'The Golden Compass' has it all: handsome heroes, dastardly villains, witches and even alcoholic polar bears. It is, however, not perfect. While the acting is impeccable all around, the special effects breathtaking and the story intriguing, it does suffer from the same issues as numerous other first installments of a longer series.

Like 'The Fellowship of the Ring' and 'Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone' before it, 'The Golden Compass' spends a great deal of time setting things up, juggling between locations, creating atmospheres and introducing the many characters who all have a part to play in the continuing saga. It's a contrived setup not unlike a Grade 1 child relating their holiday experience to the class: "And then we went to the beach, and then we bought ice-cream and then we played with the dog and then and then, and then…"

But despite this initial jarring, 'The Golden Compass' soon recovers from its schizophrenic staccato to settle down into a well-paced and thoroughly entertaining piece of cinema. It's good — even great — fantasy. It's fun, adventurous and magical, but only if taken with a healthy dose of reality.