Nicole Kidman’s new role in The Golden Compass isn’t making her any friends among children or Christians.

It seems the movie features a church, called the Magisterian (which is also the name of the Catholic Church teaching authority), which steals children from their homes and takes them away to the frozen northern wasteland to be experimented on. The books are quite scathing of the church, but the movie version doesn’t feature this heavily.

However, the sanitised version of Pullman’s book has failed to appease the Catholic League, which has 350,000 members, and which has already been sending out leaflets denouncing the film.

“The Catholic League wants Christians to stay away from this movie precisely because it knows that the film is bait for the books,” said president William Donohue.

“Unsuspecting parents who take their children to see the movie may be impelled to buy the three books as a Christmas present. And no parent who wants to bring their children up in the faith will want any part of these books,” he added.

[From Sydney Morning Herald]

Actually, I don’t think any parent should want their kids to see the film. It features children being experimented on, Nicole Kidman as a scary witch with a ferocious monkey as a sidekick, and polar bears fighting. I’m not sure if this is actually a children’s movie. It’s being called a cross between Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings, but the studio doesn’t have enough confidence in the movie to end it in the cliffhanger the book does.

In the film the characters have their souls represented by an animal that best reflects them. In real life, what would Nicole Kidman’s be?

“It changes. Yesterday it was a kitten, ’cause I love milk and” – she giggled – “I like to be patted and taken care of and sleep a lot. Today it’s changed, and it’s a tiger.”

[From Boston Herald]

Congratulations Nicole on giving this year’s most cliche answer in an interview. I suspect that this won’t be a category at next year’s Academy Awards.

Picture note by Celebitchy: Thanks to AllMoviePhoto for these pictures from the film.