Rotten Tomatoes provides a quick overview and links to reviews, and from The Golden Compass rating of forty-three percent fresh, it appears the company as right in fearing it might not roll out well. However, a more in-depth reading of reactions reveals at least two camps. First are people famiiar with the books, who can leap the abridgements in the plot—mostly while agreeing some are necessary—and so follow the story. Second are people who haven't and who see a vast spectacle heavy with effects and name actors but ask, Where's the plot? The director's cut on DVD—where they can add about an hour of missing material—is probably going to be the real version of what is a complex, slow-moving story even in book form.