Attention, filmgoers who have seen and enjoyed The Golden Compass: According to The Vatican, you're either "dishonest" or you haven't been "gifted with a critical spirit."

Such is the underlying message to be taken from a long (and rather smug) editorial in Wednesday's edition of l'Osservatore Romano, the official Vatican daily. Calling Compass' underwhelming box-office performance "consoling," the paper dismisses Chris Weitz's adaptation of Philip Pullman's book as the "most anti-Christmas film possible" before speculating that the movie's $26 million domestic opening might spell doom for the remainder of the planned trilogy. "If that should happen," says the editorial, "it wouldn't be a big loss."

And if you actually enjoyed the movie, what's wrong with you? That's what the paper wants to know. You should have found it "devoid of any particular emotion apart from a great chill," because "in Pullman's world, hope simply does not exist, because there is no salvation but only personal, individualistic capacity to control the situation and dominate events."

So there, New Line, Philip Pullman, and Chris Weitz. The Catholic Church showed you. And just wait until you read what they have to say about Angels & Demons! (We have to ask, though -- where was the Vatican's film critic when we were having our holiday spirits crushed by Deck the Halls and/or Christmas with the Kranks? Talk about your most anti-Christmas films possible...)

Source: Variety