The first installment in the Narnia Chronicles has been a surprise success for its strength in battling King Kong. In this case, Narnia's success is probably a combination of Kong's tediousness and Narnia's appeal to religious groups. Plus enchanting special effects.
The CGI creatures in Narnia were excellently rendered. Fauns, talking beavers, wolves and foxes, centaurs, and, of course, Aslan the Lion, all play central roles in the tale, and I was surprised that I could watch them without much distraction. (I am usually not a big fan of talking animals.) The best special effects are reserved for the war scenes in Narnia, which are reminiscent of Lord of the Rings, though without blood. Massive armies of odd creatures charge violently at each other. Winged creatures drop boulder bombs. Lots of arrows, swords, and shields. If you love medieval battle scenes, you will be disappointed only by the brevity of the Narnia clash.
I was not enamored with the child actors. At several points, I found myself comparing Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy to Harry, Hermione, and Ron -- and the comparison was not flattering for the Narnia bunch. Nevertheless, Skandar Keynes, who played Edmund, did a fine job of making himself despicable. And Lucy is cute, especially in the early scenes with the Mr. Tumnus.
The story is more interesting than Kong, though not very suspenseful. As one critic observed, "The story does what it can to introduce some doubt into the possibility that Aslan and the outnumbered forces of righteousness – a mythological mélange of brightly arrayed creatures – will triumph, but there’s about as much suspense as in the New Testament."
In the end, my favorite part of the movie may have been near the beginning, when Lucy first discovers Narnia. Her passage through the wardrobe, from furs to pine needles, is magical.
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1. Posted by The Unknown Professor on December 28, 2005 @ 13:14 | Permalink
I think that a lot of the success of TLTWATW is simply that it's a a great story. It has heroism, betrayal, good and evil, sacrifice, battle, etc...
And, with all that, you can take relatively young kids to it without fear. Both the munchkins (5&7) have seen it, and the 7 year old (my son) has seen it twice.
Many people forget (or didn't know in the first place) that C.S. Lewis was a professor of classics long before he wrote the Narnia stories. So, he knew the great themes in classical literature and embedded a lot of them in the series.
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