The Chronicles of Narnia: My Review

December 11, 2005 at 10:55 am nathan118 3 comments

Last night we saw The Chronicles of Narnia with Sarah and Andrew. I’m not sure what my expectations were heading into the movie, but I think they were a little high. I will keep my review spoiler free, and perhaps I will help you decide if this is a good movie for you.

I read all seven books in elementary school, so my memory of them is not very good. As an adult, I prefer watching "adult" movies, and I expected such from The Chronicles of Narnia. Perhaps I have been spoiled by Harry Potter and the Lord of the Rings series, but I expected something on par from Narnia in both epic scale and quality. Unfortunately, as the PG rating should give away, Narnia is targeted more at the elementary crowd than Harry Potter and LOTR. That is not a bad thing, but I like "adult" movies more. There is no blood, dumbed down action sequences, very bad child actors, and some really awkward dialogue between certain characters (i.e. Tumnus and Lucy, the Witch and Edmund). Also, every time that Peter is holding his sword he looks laughable, not inspiring. The computer effects were very well done, but the acting and dialogue were really bad.

So is the movie a waste of time? No, but I think it could have been better, even as a PG movie. In the hands of a better director the movie really could have shined. Go to a matinee showing.

Misc child actors, lord of the rings, pg rating, tumnus and lucy

Trent

Wow, I completely disaagree with you. having seen it twice, and loving it both times, I think it ws very well done. On your action sequences/blood thing, the person next to me turned and asked “This is a kid’s movie?” increduously and I agreed. Now it’s no big war epic movie, but I don’t think it was a kids either. On your Character and dialogue, I disagree again. I thought that was one of the strongest parts, except in Peter’s case. I agree with you, he looked laughable with the sword, but i think that was some of the point even though he was a little weak with the whole “I’m in charge now” bit.

By the way, Beaver was hilarious.
Lori

I also agree with the poster above. Angelo and I loved it and came away happy. We both agreed that it was not on the same scale as the two movies you mentioned, but you know what, I liked it that way. This story is simple and timeless and would have been ruined it was all hollywoody. I loved that they used a cast of noones and didnt get caught up in huge overdone war scenes and such. They stuck to the story almost 100%. Because I read this to my 4th graders, I found myself scrutinizing every detail in the movie, looking for scenes, lines, etc that the writers threw in to make it more interesting, but I found very few things.. in fact, I found MANY things that were discretely placed in the film… for example.. the professor takes tobacco from a silver apple container… for any narnia fan its obvious that its regarding the tree in which the wardrobe was sculpted from.. that tree grew silver apples.. but that is from the 1st book “The Magicians Nephew” I loved that though. For true Narnia fans it was perfect, timeless, and non-hollywood… thankgoodness!
http://www.theblarg.com nathan118

I still hold that the acting was pretty bad throughout. I think much of what I found wrong with the movie was a result of it being so closely tied to the book. I haven’t read the book in a long time, but it obviously isn’t as epic a story as Lord of the Rings. That being said, I think the movie tried to be epic and this great big mystical world…but ultimately there is very little to fill that world, which is partly the books “fault.”

During the final sequences there are all these mystical characters, but there was something that really bugged me. They all just came out of nowhere. None of them had a “home” it seemed, they were just good guys and bad guys made up to fight at the end. While maybe that’s the whole point, and Narnia is just some fantasy world filled with fantasy characters, but I think it made everything seem superficial.

The Chronicles of Narnia: My Review

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