I guess this is loosely game related, as all children's fantasy movies invariably provoke a slew of tie ins, so I'm going to talk briefly about The Golden Compass.

If you have read the book (Northern Lights for us Brits), do NOT see this film. Seriously, you'll be doing yourself a favour if you just wait until the DVD.

My wife and I went into the cinema expecting a fairly decent adaptation of a book that's been a personal favourite of ours for years. What we got was a rushed, choppy, bastardised mess instead. And don't get me started about the ending.

When I heard that it was being turned into a film last year, I was sceptical to say the least, particularly with an American film company handling distribution. Now, before people start jumping down my throat, I'm going to qualify this by saying that the Dark Materials sequence is not exactly...complimentary about religion, and with Harry Potter serving as a precedent for what angry religious fundamentalists could do, I was worried that the content would be...sanitised a fair amount.

Oddly, it wasn't. New Line did seem to keep a lot of the Magisterium's evilness intact, albeit less in the way of religion being evil.

***SPOILERS*

No, what ruined the film was the ending. I'm going to say it: it was a cop out. In a film that had a fair amount of violence, whoever decided that the best way to end a dark film would be a cliched 'flying into the sunset' trope needs to be shot. Into the sun. Naked.

***END SPOILERS***

After this, I really don't hold out hope for The Subtle Knife