“The Golden Compass” has engendered more than its share of controversy. Now, after hearing a lot of complaints, the USCCB has withdrawn a favorable review written by two of its staff critics.

But the film’s star, according to press reports, remains a good Catholic girl:

hough she was once married to the world’s most famous Scientologist, papists will be pleased to know that Nicole Kidman remains publicly a Catholic at heart.

The erstwhile Mrs. Tom Cruise (and current Mrs. Keith Urban) has joined the chorus of filmmakers involved in The Golden Compass — the first of Philip Pullman’s controversial His Dark Materials trilogy to be made into a feature film — defending Pullman’s work against “anti-God” charges. Most of these have come from groups representing Catholics — including the U.S. Catholic League and, locally, the Halton Catholic School board which pulled the books off their shelves.

But it’s as a Catholic that Kidman made her stand.

“Simply put, I don’t want to make a film that’s anti-religious or anti-Catholic,” she told a press conference in London prior to the film’s premiere. “I come from a Catholic family, so that’s not something that my grandmother would be very happy about, and I don’t really think that’s what I’m involved in.

“I think there’s almost an alarmist approach to it right now, and when you see the film, that will be dissipated.”

Set in a world parallel to ours, where humans have animal “daemons” who act as companions and repositories for their souls, and where an all-powerful organization of doctrine-keepers called the Magisterium rules, The Golden Compass stars newcomer Dakota Blue Richards as Lyla Belacqua, a little girl who heads North on the trail of “blasphemous” mysteries.

Among these: The rampant disappearances of poor children and the discovery of worlds-connecting “dust” by her uncle/father figure Lord Asriel (Daniel Craig). She has, on her side, a collection of allies that include her own daemon (voiced by Freddie Highmore), an armour-clad polar bear (voiced by Ian McKellen) and a witch (Eva Green).

Against her: A sinister, much-feared agent of the Magisterium, Marisa Coulter (Kidman), whose connection to Lyra turns out to be deep.

Though she’s terrific playing an evil ice queen in the role, she says she’s in for the long haul because of the deepening of all the characters, including hers. “With Marisa Coulter, I hope we get to make all three films because I love playing her. The rest of the trilogy, the way in which it explodes, opens up and layers of her are peeled away, which is exciting to me.

“Obviously she’s morally questionable at times, but also–and it gives away the film if I talk about it too much–but there is a pulse in her, a heart beating in her, that’s driving her to do things.

“The extraordinary arc of this woman … if I only get to play it in this (movie) it will be very disappointing. Put it that way.”

Given the poor box office of this first film, I’m afraid Nicole will have to brace herself for disappointment.

Meantime, there’s word of a Michigan grandmother organizing her own protest against the film. Somehow, I don’t think she’s the only one…