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

In the interests of full disclosure, I should begin by letting you know that I wasn't too excited about seeing this movie in the first place. I was, however, interested in seeing a movie with Darren so that we could both write reviews and put them up on our nifty new blog. Keeping that in mind, let's begin, shall we?

I read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe about fifteen years ago, and going into the movie, I remembered almost none of it. Throughout the film I felt twinges of deja vu here and there, as though I was trying to recall something glimmering just beyond my mind's reach; but for the purposes of this review, we'll say that I went into the film with a clean slate. It amounts to pretty much the same thing, with as few details as I was able to recall from my reading of the book.

• The Characters, Part I
  

The film opens with an exciting sequence depicting the Nazi bombing of London during World War II, but the flames of that excitement are quickly doused by the first of way too many clunky, heavy-handed bits of exposition and character development. Okay, their father's at war. Peter's the noble jerk older brother we love to hate, and Edmund's the stubborn one with the cunning look permanently set on his face. Lucy's a wide-eyed, guileless little girl, and Susan's more of a mother figure than their mother actually gets a chance to be. All of that becomes clear in the first few minutes of the film, so they're free to play with character development from there, right?

Nope. Not at all.

These aren't real children. They're cartoon characters. Completely one-dimensional. Inasmuch as their characters change through the course of the film, it's never really believable. Edmund's "redemption" is the most convincing, but it holds its own problems. I'll discuss them later.

• The Plot (spoilers definitely follow)
  

I was left scratching my head at nearly every new development in the plot of this film. First, Lucy discovers a magical wardrobe which opens onto the magical land of Narnia. I guess we're supposed to just accept that Narnia is fantasy for fantasy's sake, and that we don't need a reason for why this particular wardrobe opens onto it. But Narnia's clearly not just fantasy for fantasy's sake. When the faun (half-goat, half-man) Mr. Tumnus tells Lucy that in Narnia it's "always winter, never Christmas," he betrays (to the audience) a fundamental link between Narnia and our own world: Christmas. If Narnia is just pure fantasy, unrelated to our own world, what basis would they have to know of and celebrate Christmas?

I'm getting sidetracked. Let's move on, because I could go off on the Christmas tangent for hours. Lucy comes back from Narnia after a few hours, and she discovers that mere seconds have passed by in our world. Naturally, none of her three siblings believe her about the magical portal in the wardrobe, which is now for some reason just a wardrobe again. But inevitably, Lucy travels to Narnia again (why the hell is the wardrobe sometimes a portal, sometimes not?), and this time Edmund travels with her. Edmund's selfishness and greed is hammered home, once again quite heavy-handedly, when he meets with the self-styled Queen of Narnia (the Witch, of the title) and won't stop asking for Turkish Delight. He even promises to bring her his own siblings for the promise of rooms full of the stuff (I've tried it, and I've got to tell you all, it's not that good). Of course, when Edmund and Lucy return to our world, Edmund denies having been there, cementing his position in our minds as the bastard of the Pevensie clan.

This is getting too long. I'll sum up the rest quickly. Soon all four children make it through the wardrobe to Narnia, and through the words of a kindly talking beaver couple, they discover that they're the Saviors of Narnia, according to an ancient prophecy. Edmund is imprisoned by the Witch for not bringing her his siblings, and the kids press on in fulfillment of the prophecy, even though they say they're just trying to find their brother.

There are whispers of Aslan, who is rumored to be mounting an army to defeat the Witch. The kids figure Aslan can help them get Edmund back, so they make their way to go see him. On their way, they meet Santa Claus, who gives them some weapons, with which to kill people, presumably. Funny, I thought that would be "naughty."

There's some "thrilling" chases, the kids meet Aslan, who turns out to be a Lion (yes, the same one as in the title), and Edmund escapes the Witch. The Witch then comes to Aslan's camp to demand Edmund's blood, as per the "Deep Magic" (don't ask), and Aslan strikes some deal that spares Edmund's life. We soon realize that the deal Aslan made was to sacrifice his own life to spare Edmund's. In a scene that could have come straight from Mel Gibson, we see Aslan mounting the hill to the cross--sorry, to the stone table, where he's shaved and killed. The Pevensie girls lay through the night with him, and then for some reason he comes back to life.

Peter leads Aslan's army against the Witch's army, and it's pretty clear that these young "Saviors of Narnia" can't handle the fight, but then Aslan comes in and saves the day. The only blood we see comes from a small cut above Peter's eyebrow, to indicate that he's been doing fierce battle. The sword that he presumably used to stab countless monsters is clean as the day it was forged.

At the end of the film, older versions of the children, now Kings and Queens of Narnia, come across the place where they entered the land long ago, though they've long since forgotten where they came from. They fall back out the wardrobe and are magically young again! Maybe time passes differently in Narnia, maybe it was all in their imaginations. Whatever.

This movie was boring and nearly incomprehensible. I don't know what the message was supposed to be. Are children supposed to be obedient? Peter keeps chastising Edmund for not doing what he's told, but Peter's kind of a jerk. Are we supposed to listen to him? Are we supposed to realize the value in confessing our transgressions to Aslan, as Edmund did?

The allegory is obvious (especially if you're looking for it), and the story and all its elements are weak. The visuals are pretty impressive, but not nearly as much as I'd expected, for $180 million. I think kids would probably like this film, but in my view, there's nothing about it to appeal to an older, more discriminating viewer.

Kids: ***
Fantasy: *
Enjoyment: *