Most costly film ever - any cop?

When a movie arrives with the "most expensive film ever made" tag on its shoulders, we expect to be blown away by the results.

So it comes as something as an underwhelming anticlimax to discover that The Golden Compass is, after all, just another fantasy movie.

Yes, the computer imagery is spectacular. Yes, the magical fantasy worlds conjured up are a feast for the eyes. And yes, Dakota Blue Richards is an undoubted star in the making as our heroine, in her first-ever big-screen role.

But a fantasy film such as this needs to sweep us off our feet on such a fast-paced ride that we lose ourselves in a world we don't need to understand, and become emotionally attached to a group of characters who have rapidly turned into our new best pals.

It's based on the first of Philip Pullman's series of best selling and rather religiously controversial books, His Dark Materials.

In a parallel universe far away, young Lyra Belacqua (Richards) is special.