A Magnificent Accomplisment!

Rating: 10/10 (10 December 2005)

As a fan of C.S. Lewis' books, I thought that this movie did "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe" justice better than any other medium in the past. Even though I was a little skeptical at first, all of my fears were extinguished when I saw the final product.
Since this was such a good movie, I don't want to leave people with the few very minor gripes that I had, so I'm just going to put the bad points at the beginning to get them out of my system. One was that they put a little more emphasis on the children's importance than Aslan's. In the books, spring and Christmas return because Aslan comes back, but according to the movie's Father Christmas, the children were breaking the witch's spell. True, the children are important in the book, but they were tacked with extra importance in the movie. It' obvious from Beaver leaving out the prophecy about Aslan that he talks about in the book. Another of my gripes is that they don't seem to be paying much mind to "The Magician's Nephew" when it came to the Professor. In that book, which is supposed to come before LWW, the much younger version of the Professor goes into Narnia using magic rings, not the wardrobe. I got the impression from the very end that he actually went through the wardrobe to get to Narnia. The wardrobe was in fact made from a tree that grew out of a Narnian apple seed in Young Professor's backyard long after he got back from his last trip there. There was never any indication that he even knew the wardrobe led to Narnia until Lucy entered. However, there is a nod to "The Magician's Nephew" when we looking at the lamppost. In that book, a lamppost on a busy street in our world that has two little bars sticking out of the near-top gets grabbed by a carriage driver. One of the bars breaks off when the driver gets accidentally taken to Narnia. The bar is then thrown to the ground and makes a full lamppost grow in its place, hence the end marking of the land. The fact that the lamppost of the movie only had one bar was a nice touch. These points in the movie were definitely not enough to quell my enjoyment of it at all, but I still felt that I needed to get them out there.
Let me now state some of the many good points of this movie. First off, the animation was superb. I found it very hard to believe that Aslan was completely computer generated. His mane and his features were so real that I almost doubted the fact that he was a fake animal. The animation of the other creatures was top-notch as well, including the beavers, the wolves, the fox, and pretty much everything else. This is animation that might surpass the "Lord of the Rings" and another Disney creation called "Dinosaur" in terms of quality. The scenery was also amazing, so much so that it took my breath away.
The acting of the children was top-notch, especially that of the little girl who played Lucy. She captured so much emotion and practically stole the show in every scene. I was also very impressed with the actress who played the White Witch. She did a perfect job of playing an "actor". The fact that she could do the fake compassionate and then move on to pure evil was amazing to me. That takes a lot of talent. I very much enjoyed Liam Neeson as the voice of Aslan. He was perfect for this part and really helped sell Aslan for me. I actually think it's funny that everyone on screen who's old, wise, and British is played by Liam Neeson nowadays. I don't think that there's anything wrong with that, but I just think that it's funny.
The pure heart of the movie was what had me the most. The relationship between the brothers and sisters was great and very touching. The death of Aslan was worthy to be called the climax of the movie with such heart wrenching sadness as well as pure happiness taking over when he resurrected.
That actually brings me to the issue of the Christian allegories. I'm not going to list them specifically since they are very obvious in the movie, but I for one am very happy that Disney didn't water them down. They were my favorite part of the books and they are my favorite part of the movie, too. I'm glad that Disney got smart and realized that the parallels in the story were not offensive in any way, but rather essential to the overall plot.
I actually cannot think of any more great points to this movie because the movie as a whole was so fantastic. If I had to list all of the good points I could think of, then I would have to write a ten-page paper, which I don't think that anyone has time to read.
All in all, I say that this was one of the best movies of the year. After horrible and pointless movies like "Your, Mine, and Ours" and "Aeon Flux", as well as the good but very adult movies like "Walk the Line" out on the screens, this was the breath of fresh air I needed to get geared up for the holiday season. A very good family-friendly movie is hard to find these days and I'm glad that Disney is delivering at long last. I certainly hope that the Oscars recognize the superb animation, beautiful screenplay, and possibly even the picture as a whole (wishful thinking because of the allegories and target audience, but you never know) in its voting. This movie is Disney at its best and I recommend it to anyone, Christian or not, who loves adventure, action, and amazing film-making.