Reviews of "The Golden Compass" were mixed. On the review aggregator website "Rotten Tomatoes" the film has an approval rating of 42%, based on 197 reviews, with an average score of 5.63/10. The critical consensus reads: "Without the bite or the controversy of the source material, "The Golden Compass" is reduced to impressive visuals overcompensating for lax storytelling." At "Metacritic", which assigns a weighted average rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the film has received an average score of 51, based on 33 reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews".