This review has spoilers. Don't read if you have not read the books and you plan to. Also, the review assumes familiarity with the books.
There is a currently popular meme online that is used to show how the quality of things tends to decline with time. The meme is usually a drawing of a horse divided into 3 portions with the 1st third being a high-quality painting, the 2nd third being a good black and white drawing and the last third being just a stick drawing. Applying the meme to the 3 versions of this story that I have consumed; I would rate the poorly received 2007 film The Golden Compass as a painting completely done by a professional. The books would be a good drawing that could be improved with some work and the 2020 series would be the stick drawing. Here, I intend to talk about book and series, the few things I liked and the many I did not.
I think the book was notorious and critically acclaimed because of its negative portrayal of organized religion. I found its idea of humans rebelling against a god (albeit a fake god) interesting. Although, given that the story is focused on the narrative of the Abrahamic religions, the omission of Lucifer left a gap in the backstory. Unfortunately, this story of another revolt did not do justice to this grand idea of another uprising against the cosmic order. The revelation of the nature of the conspiracy also made me disagree with the assertion in TheLady's writeup above that says there are no purely good or purely evil characters in the story. If a person intends to limit others, to prevent them from doing things that have no effect on one, then that person is evil. In the story, that person is Metatron, a man (biblical Enoch), who becomes an angel and overthrows God, who it turns out is an impostor. There was no logical reason for Metatron to want to keep mortals ignorant because it did not appear as if our knowledge was a threat to him and his clique nor the cessation of our worship was a loss to them. A second reason for thinking the Authority and Metatron are evil is the world of the dead. What was the point of confining the dead people in such a place and having harpies torture them? This entire section of the story was just crap. It was pointless and unimaginative. It was unimaginative because the depiction of the underworld and the rescuing of the dead was really similar to how it was done in Ursula K. LeGuin's EarthSea series. However, while Ursula's story had a good reason for the events, this one did not. Also, the way Will and Lyra got into the place and got out was just too easy.
While I thought the book was just so so, what made me dislike the series (even though I watched it to the end) was the acting, especially James McAvoy's acting and delivery. In the books, Asriel had a forceful and dominating character. He was not so in the series where his portrayal as a leader revolved around him being shown as a hands-on person. The director's idea was to show him doing everything - being a test pilot, being a mechanic, being a commando super soldier who goes alone into an enemy camp to rescue Ogunwe and being a democrat by having decisions taken by committee. He came across as a mediocre man trying to behave how he imagines a great person would behave in a great role. The delivery of his lines grew steadily more wooden and self-consciously important as the series progressed. Actually, the series itself was rather self-conscious with many of the actors, especially those who fancy themselves as good guys, declaiming their lines rather than speaking. There was too much use of techniques that Bollywood and telenovelas use in an attempt to make mundane situations seem important. Those techniques are overuse of thunderous bombastic music, zooming and close up shots of characters, and slow motion. Although to be fair, the situation is important since it is a war for the multiverse. It is unfortunate that this rendition just was unable to give it the necessary gravity. Additionally, while the depiction of the conflict was underwhelming in the books, it was downright disappointing in the series. It was disappointing because it was cliched since it was resolved in a final battle. The idea of a last battle, a boss fight, is so old that for it to be good, it has to be really good. This one wasn't not only because of the stupid way the opposing forces ran/flew towards each other in the final battle, but also because the destruction of the boss was done in an unimaginative way and the trick he fell for was an unimaginative one.
McAvoy was not the only person who did not seem like a fit person for the role. Lyra's portrayal just made her seem like a spoilt kid. I disliked how she insisted on going off to look for Roger rather than going to help Asriel to end the war. I have always disliked how films show heroes as willing to risk destruction of the world for 1 person. Will looked like a sap, more likely to curl up and cry rather than fight despite the series making him to a boxer rather than a pianist. This might be because the actor is a beautiful boy. The portrayal would have been better if the actor had looked like Wayne Rooney. Marisa Coulter, while a good-looking woman in both film and series, had an unhinged, emotional side in the series that was not in the books. I think this spoilt her portrayal. Also, while the actress is a beautiful woman, she kept reminding me of Moe Szyslak from The Simpsons. Shots of her from the side showed her upper lip protruding over the lower. The character portrayals I liked the least were the 2 angels Balthamos and Baruch. In the books, they are 2 angels who love each other. In the films, they are shown as 2 men - a white man and a black one. Since angels are supposed to be sexless and androgynous (in conventional modern media anyway, best portrayed by Tilda Swinton in the film Constantine), these actors kissing each other did not seem gay. Except that the white guy looks like he would fit right into a gay film. The black guy just seemed inappropriate. He had a face like a labourer's palm - all calloused. And he looked rather stupid. In secondary school, I had this really sarcastic English teacher. Like most secondary school teachers here, he was broke and poor and I suppose that made him mean. He once asked a boy his name and when the boy replied, the teacher said "what a stupid name, it shows on your face!" I imagine the actor who portrayed Balthamos would have a stupid name, because he has a stupid face. Even the way he spoke and walked did not seem intelligent. I think he is the character I disliked most in both book and series. This is not to say I disliked all the characters. I liked the guy who portrayed Lord Boreal. His series portrayal, like that of the Gyptian leaders - Farder Coram and John Faa, was better than that of the books. The character I disliked least was Ruta Skadi, one of the witches. She is an attractive woman who looks innocently dumb, like the women in the shows about the trophy wives of basketball stars. The other prominent witch - Serafina Pekkala - looked like a conventional model: thin, tall, blonde, placing one foot in front of the other when she walks. In other words, boring. She reminds me of a story about Elizabeth Hurley which alleged that Ms. Hurley lacked the talent to be an actress and only got parts because she dates powerful men in the film industry.
I had really anticipated reading this book. Unfortunately, it was disappointing. Watching the series just made it worse.