Hollywood is a copycat community, and nowhere is that more evident than in The Golden Compass. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

The other-worldly virtues of the Lord of the Rings and the kid-centric structure of Chronicles of Narnia are dutifully combined here to provide an exciting action story with spectacular visual effects. Even better, it never feels as if it’s retreading territory that’s been conquered before, although New Line Cinema (which made LOTR) clearly knows what it’s doing.

The intriguing premise hooks us early: In a parallel universe, in which the souls of human beings, called “daemons,” take the form of animals that never leave their sides, a British lord named Asriel (Daniel Craig) thinks he’s found a way to travel between different universes, manifested as a special dust located near the Arctic Circle.

So Asriel goes to the North Pole on the spellbinding adventure that is The Golden Compass. Our conduit is Asriel’s niece Lyra (Dakota Blue Richards), a naive and rebellious child whose friends Roger (Ben Walker) and Billy (Charlie Rowe) have mysteriously disappeared. Believing they’ve been taken to the north by “gobblers,” Lyra sets off to find them with Mrs. Coulter (Nicole Kidman), who is not what she seems. Along the way, Lyra befriends a chivalrous bear (voiced by Ian McKellen), an “aeronaut” (think cowboy, only in the sky) played by Sam Elliott and a flying witch named Serafina (Eva Green), all of whom have a vested interest in making sure Lyra and her Alethiometer — a truth-telling device also called a “golden compass” — remain safe.

The story is based on the first part of Philip Pullman’s Dark Materials trilogy called Northern Lights, and one can tell that writer/director Chris Weitz went to great lengths to realize Pullman’s vision. Every movie has visual challenges, but The Golden Compass has technical feats of grandeur that must have made the post-production process a nightmare. There’s a fight between two bears that is stunningly rendered, and every single character’s daemon is computer-generated to act in tune with the live actor.

Much has been made of the anti-religious nature of the book, but the connections are hardly overt. Yes, leaders of the control-seeking governing body trying to stop Lyra and Asriel wear long, dark robes with splashes of red and talk of “heretics,” but it’s a stretch to interpret them as Catholics. Let’s wait for the sequels before we really start excoriating the blasphemy.

Considering that Weitz (About a Boy) has never before worked on a film with such logistics and scope, he has achieved a reasonable success, although the ending is a bit heinous in that it’s clearly meant to give a taste of what’s to come in the sequels. This part of the journey needs better closure. However, the visual effects and live action is seamlessly merged, the story flows and is easy to follow, the performances are solid and the musical score is upbeat and reflective. It’s a nice start for what looks to be a new franchise.