A lovable fantasy film

Rating: 8/10 (9 September 2008)

Being a fan of this book, I found "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe" to be a great film version. It stuck to the story and events in the novel very well. A story like this deserves to have big-budget companies like Disney and Walden Media to make it into a great movie. The filmmakers obviously went to great lengths to find child actors that actually seemed like real children, unlike many of the young performances in films and on TV today. Liam Neeson is also the perfect voice for Aslan, the king and hero of the story (the lion of the title). Tilda Swinton is also well-cast as the White Witch; it takes a good actress to pull off an evil character like her's. Being a Christian, I love the spiritual allegory of Jesus Christ portrayed as Aslan in this film, showing the saving power and redemption He brings. It's a great film that accurately follows the original C.S. Lewis book. Some of the battle scenes at the end are a bit too long, and some of the attempts at humor in the film are too lame and annoying, both of which prevent this from being a perfect movie. Nevertheless, this is a very exciting, touching, and happy film, with a great spiritual message as well. I'm not a big fan of fantasy films, and I still enjoy it. This one is worth owning and seeing again.
*** out of ****