The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe - DJ
For those of you who aren’t into the fantasy genre, The Chronicles of Narnia series will essentially be a children’s version of The Lord of the Rings. Where The Lord of the Rings dabbled in fantasy with dwarves, elves, and talking trees, The Chronicles of Narnia are firmly rooted in fantasy with all your favorites such as fawns, cyclopes, and talking beavers. In fact there are only four humans in the majority of the movie. If you hate talking beavers, this is not the movie for you.
Let me just start out saying I really wanted to like this movie. I remember reading the book as a child and really liking the animated movie. Because of this, I kept trying to give it a chance.
The first half hour, I was, quite literally, bored out of my mind. I actually spent my time more interested in finding the most comfortable position in my seat. This despite my knowledge that there is no comfortable position in theater seats for someone my size. Despite this, I figured they had to set up the story and it would really get going sometime soon so there’s nothing to worry about. Around the one hour mark, I was still fidgeting around to the annoyance of my girlfriend next to me. Somewhere around an hour and twenty minutes I was about to stand up and scream “just get to the battle!” thinking that the battle would at least pull the movie from its excessive boredom. Take heart though, it did make the movie more interesting, but quite frankly, anything would have.
I think it all starting going wrong when we first saw the family. I’d say I just outright didn’t like two out of the four kids. The youngest girl was just annoying. I mean flat out, I hoped she would just get off the screen. That however, is an improvement over the younger boy who I wanted to stay on the screen so someone could stab him. Yes, he’s actually that annoying. Now I understand that's how he is in the book, but something about me just not liking half the cast right in the beginning took me out of the movie. I was more comfortable with the talking beavers. At least they were funny….and fuzzy.
Obviously, going into this movie I was not expecting anything to the extent of The Lord of the Rings. This is meant to be a children’s movie and don’t go in expecting anything different. Because of this, even in battle, swords are always perfectly shiny as blood would push the rating above PG. Unfortunately, I don’t see how children could sit through this movie if I couldn’t even sit still. There’s plenty of talking fuzzy animals for them, but even that I don’t think will keep children amused for the entire time. The battle at the end I thought was good, if not a bit generic after all the other major medieval battles we’ve seen; though the addition of the heavy fantasy elements freshens it up a bit.
The effects were also extremely good as you’d expect from a big budget movie these days. Almost all the animals in the movie were computer animated, and were very well done. In particular, Aslan’s (the lion of The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe) mane is extraordinarily detailed and flows realistically in the wind. The witch of the aforementioned name unfortunately just reminds me of the Borg Queen of Star Trek: First Contact with bad tube looking hair coming out of her head instead of actual tubes coming out of her head.
Unfortunately unless you’re going into this movie for its Christian allegory, there’s not much that this movie lives up to. Stated plainly, this movie is boring and I’m one who’s usually amused by simple things such as effects and battle scenes. While I can’t accurately predict how much children will like this, I am giving the movie two and a half stars as a children’s movie. I think kids would enjoy the beautiful scenes, talking animals, and four kids saving the world, but I just think the first half of the movie may move too slowly to keep their attention. As a fantasy movie, I give it one star. It follows The Lord of the Rings in bringing the fantasy genre into the mainstream by pushing the limits farther, but once again, the lack of an engrossing story won’t lift the genre as much as a really good fantasy movie could have. Overall, my enjoyment of this movie is a mere one and a half stars which stems mostly from the amazing detail of the CG animals and the battle scene full of fantasy creatures at the end. My fear is that the book is actually just as mundane and I just didn’t realize it as a child.
Childrens: **½
Fantasy: *
Enjoyment: *½
Let me just start out saying I really wanted to like this movie. I remember reading the book as a child and really liking the animated movie. Because of this, I kept trying to give it a chance.
The first half hour, I was, quite literally, bored out of my mind. I actually spent my time more interested in finding the most comfortable position in my seat. This despite my knowledge that there is no comfortable position in theater seats for someone my size. Despite this, I figured they had to set up the story and it would really get going sometime soon so there’s nothing to worry about. Around the one hour mark, I was still fidgeting around to the annoyance of my girlfriend next to me. Somewhere around an hour and twenty minutes I was about to stand up and scream “just get to the battle!” thinking that the battle would at least pull the movie from its excessive boredom. Take heart though, it did make the movie more interesting, but quite frankly, anything would have.
I think it all starting going wrong when we first saw the family. I’d say I just outright didn’t like two out of the four kids. The youngest girl was just annoying. I mean flat out, I hoped she would just get off the screen. That however, is an improvement over the younger boy who I wanted to stay on the screen so someone could stab him. Yes, he’s actually that annoying. Now I understand that's how he is in the book, but something about me just not liking half the cast right in the beginning took me out of the movie. I was more comfortable with the talking beavers. At least they were funny….and fuzzy.
Obviously, going into this movie I was not expecting anything to the extent of The Lord of the Rings. This is meant to be a children’s movie and don’t go in expecting anything different. Because of this, even in battle, swords are always perfectly shiny as blood would push the rating above PG. Unfortunately, I don’t see how children could sit through this movie if I couldn’t even sit still. There’s plenty of talking fuzzy animals for them, but even that I don’t think will keep children amused for the entire time. The battle at the end I thought was good, if not a bit generic after all the other major medieval battles we’ve seen; though the addition of the heavy fantasy elements freshens it up a bit.
The effects were also extremely good as you’d expect from a big budget movie these days. Almost all the animals in the movie were computer animated, and were very well done. In particular, Aslan’s (the lion of The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe) mane is extraordinarily detailed and flows realistically in the wind. The witch of the aforementioned name unfortunately just reminds me of the Borg Queen of Star Trek: First Contact with bad tube looking hair coming out of her head instead of actual tubes coming out of her head.
Unfortunately unless you’re going into this movie for its Christian allegory, there’s not much that this movie lives up to. Stated plainly, this movie is boring and I’m one who’s usually amused by simple things such as effects and battle scenes. While I can’t accurately predict how much children will like this, I am giving the movie two and a half stars as a children’s movie. I think kids would enjoy the beautiful scenes, talking animals, and four kids saving the world, but I just think the first half of the movie may move too slowly to keep their attention. As a fantasy movie, I give it one star. It follows The Lord of the Rings in bringing the fantasy genre into the mainstream by pushing the limits farther, but once again, the lack of an engrossing story won’t lift the genre as much as a really good fantasy movie could have. Overall, my enjoyment of this movie is a mere one and a half stars which stems mostly from the amazing detail of the CG animals and the battle scene full of fantasy creatures at the end. My fear is that the book is actually just as mundane and I just didn’t realize it as a child.
Childrens: **½
Fantasy: *
Enjoyment: *½
posted by DJ | 1:30 PM
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