Roger Ebert loved the Golden Compass. He thought it was a great classic kids fantasy movie and that it would be a hit.
He was disappointed by the uproar about the movie, and how many people refused to watch it without even giving it a chance.
People are comparing it to Chronicles of Narnia or Lord of the Rings. As far as the movie production goes, and the fantasy story around it goes, it’s in the same ballpark as those two movies and so a kid who liked those two movies would like the Golden Compass. However, Phillip Pullman wrote his trilogy as pretty much an exact opposite to CS Lewis’s Chronicles, and the film is, according to Ebert ( I haven’t seen the movie but I’ve read the book ), “viciously anti-god.”
That shouldn’t keep you from seeing this movie, however. It’s not an “athiest film” … ask yourself why an atheist would feel the need to “attack god.” In fact, in the end, good overcomes evil, and characters willingly make sacrifices to help one another.
Roger Ebert is a Catholic who has read the Bible cover to cover, and he can’t find anything wrong in this movie. Maybe you should give it a chance too. 
