Why does this movie make me squirm?

Rating: 5/10 (4 January 2006)

I never read the Narnia books as a child. Maybe that would have helped. I respect author C. S. Lewis as an imaginative Christian writer - his slim volume The Great Divorce is a tour-de-force of theological speculation. But this movie - yuk. Most of our UK atheist reviewers of the film tore into it for daring to slip a Christian message into the cinema. As a Catholic Christian, I would have welcomed that but in fact, it wasn't there. Instead there is a strangely mawkish, sickly-sweet analogy for the Redemption that made me feel quite uncomfortable. To me - the Christ Event of the Gospel is challenging enough without these layers of colouring-book story-weaving. I hope children will enjoy it though. I've gotta remind myself it's for them.