rated PG-13 

Just about everything you really need to know about “The Golden Compass” can be found in the initial teaser trailer for the film, released last summer. Rife with details, big stars and cute computerized animals, it proposed, right from its opening shot (a golden ring transforming into what appeared to be a very complicated pocket-watch), to quote and build from the foundation of New Line’s last and biggest hit, “The Lord of the Rings.” An ambitious promise, certainly, but a surprisingly obvious tip of the hat that gave off a distinct odor of repetition.

The action takes place on an alternate Earth, just a hair to the right of our own, where the designs of Jules Verne apparently eclipsed the theories of Issac Newton, and a deep-seated dogma of organized religion, here known as the “Magisterium,” has officially wedded church and state to create a positively Orwellian society of deceit, corruption and oppression. The souls of the people of this world manifest as living, speaking, physical sidekicks—all manner of animals, birds and bugs accompany each of the characters along the way, providing a unique kind of external/internal monologue for each—a kind of Greek chorus, but with pointy teeth. As should be expected with any story concerning soul-crushing social dogma, a villain is presented to give face to the oppressors (played here like a crystal flute of poisoned champagne by Nicole Kidman), and a hero surfaces to free the huddled masses (Daniel Craig, in his finest steely-eyed missile-man mode).

An interesting twist within this very heavy and familiar scenario is that the key players in the struggle are actually not even remotely central to the story. The major plot points involved are explained to us from the outside through the path of a precocious young girl, a grubby tomboy orphan named Lyra (fresh-faced newcomer Dakota Blue Richards, in one of the film’s many spot-on performances), who lives in cloistered asylum within the walls of an ancient “other London” university.

As local children begin to go mysteriously missing, Lyra is handed a mystical clockwork called an “Alethiometer,” (aka, the golden compass, a brassy steampunk Hitchhiker’s Guide which, when interpreted correctly, apparently reveals nothing less than God’s own truth). Taken under the dubiously protective wing of the sweet-tongued villainess, Lyra escapes to the north to find her lost comrades and aid her hero uncle in his scheme to punch a hole through space and discover a new world where freedom of will rules over the power of authority.

Adapted from Philip Pullman’s acclaimed 1995 novel, the first in “His Dark Materials” trilogy, a work known mainly for bold application of unconventional religious theory and fascinating invention of alternate realities, the film succeeds mainly as a lush and intricate illustration. Most of Pullman’s higher-minded concepts are touched on, but never displayed or explained to any satisfactory degree. The visuals are fabulous in every way—the backgrounds have a rough, lived-in ambiance, and the technology on hand has a bolted-together, retro-Victorian luster that immediately engages the eye and the mind.

But the citizens and politics of this world don’t fare quite so well. The invention and complexity of Pullman’s various “other Earth” cultures—the seafaring “Gyptians,” the sky-swooping witches, the powerful talking armored bears of the bitter northern wilderness, all originally written with great depth of history and interconnectedness—all seem to exist in this film only to be seen, but not understood. The film plows headlong from one expository scene to the next, with characters introduced only to be summarily discarded in Lyra’s oddly disconnected rush to the next adventure.

Against director Chris Weitz’s (who’s only previous successes, “American Pie” and “About a Boy” barely qualifies him to take on a work of such density) repeated assertions that the harder edges of Pullman’s work would remain intact, they do not. The mad charge to twist Lyra’s journey from spiritual to visceral has effectively drained all the blood from the larger story, leaving only a confusing, muddled romp in its place. It bears noting, also, that somehow, amid all the hurry and hullabaloo of kidnapped tykes, floating airships and fairly astonishing polar bear duels, the uncle explorer’s original big quest goes completely unresolved, presumably to be tackled in a sequel (assuming New Line hasn’t bankrupted itself getting this one off the ground). It’s a clear comment about the filmmakers’ lack of fealty to the greater ideas, and their evident resolve to dumb down the dark materials.

The most arresting image from last summer’s “The Golden Compass” trailer may have been that of a little girl perched atop an enormous polar bear bounding vigorously forward through a snowy, cold wasteland, and this may have proven to be a fateful reflection of the final film—exhilarating and striking, but ultimately just a cold and pointless journey.