The trailer for The Golden Compass has bowed, and while it has some visual effects pop, I’m not sure that, to the uninformed masses, it could look any more like a reactionary knockoff of The Chronicles of Narnia without actually being accused of nipping footage from either that film or Epic Movie.

The film — the first adapted work from yet another series of fantasy adventure novels, these by Philip Pullman — centers on a 12-year-old orphan, Lyra (Dakota Blue Richards, no doubt rocking the three names in an attempt to differentiate herself from young Ms. Fanning), who tries to rescue a kidnapped friend and ends up on an epic quest spanning parallel worlds. Nicole Kidman (above), Sam Elliott, Eva Green and Daniel Craig costar, with Ian McShane providing some burly voice work. Chris Weitz directs, (the Weitz brother not responsible for American Dreamz, but the co-director on American Pie, Down to Earth and About a Boy), and if there’s precious little in his filmography to indicate he’s particularly well versed in this sort of level of effects work, all the right strings seem to have been pulled in securing the proper state-of-the-art support staff.

Still, this is pretty baldly New Line’s grand attempt to reclaim the holiday fantasy throne, wrestled away in 2005 by Walden Media and Narnia after The Lord of the Rings series became a genre mainstay for three seasons. I mean, we’ve got the inclement weather, young children, shape-shifting creatures, a talking polar bear, et al. With the next Narnia tale not due until 2008, there’s a bit of an opening here, purely in terms of scheduling, but will moviegoers beyond fans of the book series bite? After all, audiences have a way of punishing late-comers to the party that they deem too overtly similar to previous hits. (Take 1993’s Menace II Society, for an out-of-field example; though superior in many ways to 1991’s Boyz N The Hood, it grossed $27 million to $57 million for John Singleton’s debut film.) I have a glossy advance mailing packet around here somewhere, sent to me as a teaser last holiday season, so I’ll try to dig that up and post some thoughts on it in the next week or so. In the meantime, to access The Golden Compass‘ trailer, click here. And, of tangential interest, meanwhile, for a review of Kidman’s Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus, click here.