The Chronicles of Narnia: the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

1.03.2006

If you are a fan of this book--which I'm not. I never really heard about this series 'till the trailers started coming out. But, the movie is Meh...The usual epic battle of good and bad rehash, like all the battle movies that have been coming out since Lord of the Rings. It's not a must see, like you think it would be. It's just Meh...not really bad, but not really that good. The plot is that these kids are shipped off to their uncles or something because there homeland is under attack and in the middle of war so they move to this mansion where this old guy who seems to be a collector of artifacts lives. While playing hide and seek, the little sister stumbles upon a hidden alternate universe in this closet-like wardrobe ruled by an evil ice queen. Eventually these 4 siblings go through to this world, and find out that they are destined to destroy the ice queen, and help the lion dude, the real King of Narnia to rule again.

The movie is very kid oriented, teaching kids about the right and the wrong thing to do and to grow up with honor stuff like that. My major beef with this movie is that it's pretty sad when the computer generated characters are better actors than the flesh and blood children. Almost all of the characters that are CGI are tremendous actors while the kids have this stupid look on their face...that kind of face you get when you watch TV for too long. So it was aggravating. That's it.

1.10.2006

Most people I know have been comparing Narnia to Lord of the Rings, and even though I don't really like to do stuff like that, it's a tough comparison to NOT make. In all honesty, I really, REALLY liked Narnia much better than LotR. It was just a lot more entertaining, in my opinion. There was more focus on the story and the action than on the drama and the build up, and it was much more fast-paced and fun to watch.

Tree already gave the story summary, so I'll spare you having to read that all over again and talk about the other good parts of the movie. In most cases, the CG looks real. The only time you can look at it and say "Yeah, that's definitely CG" is when the pack of wolves is running through the woods, but even then, they look pretty real. Aslan (the lion) looked especially awesome. The lip flap for all the talking animals was flawless, too. Although, like Tree said above, several of the CG characters ARE better actors than the live action characters, which tends to be a bit annoying. But, I didn't have too many problems with the acting jobs in this movie. There were a few flaws here and there, but it was good overall.

I know that I read one of the Narnia books years ago, but I forget which one and if I actually finished it or not. But, a friend of mine that has read the books told me that they followed the book 100%, aside from the final battle scene, which was made bigger. She told me that in the book, it was more like two groups of people fighting (20 to 50 on each side), which is obviously expanded upon in the movie, where it looks like thousands of fighters on each side. I think that expanding on it made the world of Narnia seem a bit more epic and important, in a way.

I really don't know much of what else to say about the movie, but I definitely recommend that everybody go to see it.

Meh...

Don't expect a Lord of the Rings out of this. It's just Meh...

Great!

Definitely check this one out. Much more fun and enjoyable than other recent fantasy style movies.