Yawn...

Rating: 4/10 (15 December 2005)

The lion the witch and the wardrobe is in my opinion, one of the worst of the seven books in the narnia series, but still a great book overall. However, I cant help but disagree completely with the length of this movie. If I recall correctly, the book was barely a novel, weighing in at a minimal 100 pages or so. Strech those 100 pages out into a two hour movie with unbelievably horrible green screens and blatant groan-able analogies, and any movie would end up with a less than 5 rating from me. Two hours! really! I'm not joking! Where did they get all that extra footage? Well, mostly views of the countryside, and long close-ups of the actors faces.
Almost every scene and character in this movie was ripped straight from the Bible, or from Lord of the Rings, and it shows. Names have been changed to protect the innocent (in most cases).
The Santa Claus scene was the worst. Why is Santa Claus in narnia? isn't it kind of another world? I think presents could have come from somewhere else just as easily, and that passage could have stayed on paper and out of the movie theater...
In defense of the movie, I understand completely that this was a movie based on a very Christian children's book and the analogies were meant to be understood by children, however, a little more subtlety could have made an okay movie into a decent movie in my opinion.
The Santa Claus scene was the worst. Why is Santa Claus in narnia? isn't it kind of another world? I think presents could have come from somewhere else just as easily, and that passage could have stayed on paper and out of the movie theater...
Even though I didn't care for this movie that much, if you haven't seen this movie yet, I do suggest watching it, because the later books in the series are much better and will make much better movies... and it would be a shame to have missed the first one.