Movies: Does Narnia Live Up to the Hype?
By stephanie - Saturday, December 10th, 2005
Gosh…I’m not quite sure how to say this. I’m a huge fan of The Chronicles of Narnia books. These were my favorite books as a child. I read them over and over again. I still have my worn and weathered Narnia boxed set in my bookshelf…it’s probably 25 years old now.
But I left my viewing of “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” with mixed feelings. The movie was great, and I really liked it a lot, and yet, I am left feeling somewhat hollow and empty, as if something was missing.
And I guess that would be the essence of my review – the film was really really good, but not mindblowing.
Maybe my expectations are simply too high now. “The Lord of the Rings” films really raised the bar, in my mind. Those films were beyond expectations – almost as perfect as they could have been. There’s a reason why “Return of the King” won an Academy Award. It set the standard for fantasy that actually took itself seriously.
This first installment of the “Narnia” films on the other hand, lacks that extra “oomph” and quality that would really set it apart as a great film. It’s a classic, but more like “Harry Potter” in tone and execution – more childlike, I suppose.
Which is really alright. After all, “Narnia” is for children, ultimately. And it’s the children in the film that really make this movie stand out. Lucy, in particular, is played to exquisite perfection by 9-year-old Georgie Henley. She is absolutely astonishing and carries the film.
All the other children are also fantastic (even sniveling Edmund, who is truly annoying in the book version). Overall, it’s the casting that saves this film. Some have complained about the choice of Tilda Swinton as the White Witch, I found her absolutely “chilling” (pardon the snow reference). She just kicks ass. In the final battle scene, she wields two swords and would give Darth Maul a run for his money.
The film is a little slow to start. (I might have enjoyed this pace more, however, if it weren’t for the multiple groups of antsy teenages milling around my seating area changing their minds over where to sit for the first half-hour.) Once the story starts rolling, it picks up speed and just gets better and better as it continues.
The climax (in case you hadn’t heard) is this absolutely stunning battle scene, and this is one part of the film that does rival the Tolkien films in quality.
“The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” is a tough story to tell in one film and still keep the sense of scope and epic quality. The plotline stays close to the book (without being excruciating about it as with the first “Harry Potter” film). The appearance of Aslan still felt a little abrupt to me, and I was left wondering about timelines and how Peter was able to amass an army in what seemed like a few hours. (I’ll admit, it’s been a while since I read the books.) Minor complaints aside, I can’t imagine how they could have done better with the plot without ruining the integrity of the story.
As to the question of special effects – once again, my reviews are mixed. Some of the talking animals were amazingly life-like. Talking beavers are hard to do well, and these worked. It seems to me, however, that the effects team who handled the creatures and animals with such aplomb must have been different from the team handling background scenery and larger scale effects – this is where “Narnia” suffers. (Backdrops were a bit obvious in some points, and the river scene was just not well done at all.)
In spite of a few complaints, by the end of the movie I was won over. It used to be that fantasy films were box office jokes. (Anyone remember “Willow”?) I am so glad to be living in a time where technology allows us to bring these classic stories to life.
Now I’m just hoping this does well enough that we can see “Prince Caspian” (the next installment) get made. It is the later books in the series that were actually my favorites, and more fantasy onscreen can’t hurt, so let’s keep the franchise going.
December 10th, 2005 at 2:44 am
Im sorry Im french
Narnia sucks ?
damoondamoon.blogspot.com
December 11th, 2005 at 5:27 am
I felt the same way about the Lord of the Rings movies. They were great movies, but they weren’t the books and I felt something was missing.
But I went to the movies with the understanding that they weren’t the books on film, but rather a different story based on the books and that I should judge the movies as they stand – not on how well they mirrored the books.
I’ve never been a Narnia fan. By the time I discovered the books, I had already gotten into Tolkien and the Narnia books seemed “childish” to me. I’ve only recently started to read them and, while nice, they don’t have the same impact on me that they probably would have if I had read them when I was a kid.
I’ll probably pick up a copy on DVD when it comes out, watch it and then give it to my nephews.
December 29th, 2005 at 5:33 pm
For some reason, the Narnia thing completely passed me by. I know nothing about the story or characters, and feel like I did about Harry Potter about 6 months prior to the first movie opening. Then I picked up HP Book One and was hooked.
LOTR was definitely a labor of love for the filmmakers and showed what you can do when you try to stay true to the spirit of the original work. (Warner Bros is still recovering from f*ing up Batman, but Batman Begins is a good start…) Stuff was missing from LOTR, but sheesh – at three hours plus apiece, I’ll cut Jackson some slack.
So with Narnia…should I read the book first, or just see the movie?
On an unrelated note, and the Batman thing reminded me of it, you should dig up an obscure film starring Christian Bale called “Equilibrium”. This was the movie that convinced the execs that Bale would make a kickass Batman. I won’t go into the plot more than to say that I know where the Wachowski’s got the inspiration for Neo’s outfits in the latter two films in the Matrix trilogy.
Take care,
pjk