Technically adequate but poor screenplay and direction

Rating: 5/10 (8 December 2005)

The first half hour of LW&W is great. They set up the four children and their relationship well, and we get to see their entrances into Narnia - and it feels really quite magical. However once all the children find their way into the wardrobe things go downhill, rapidly.
There are various things in the screenplay that aren't in the book. Usually this is understandable for the requirements of the medium, but in this case it is totally unnecessary, for example a melting ice river scene.
The screenwriters have added 21st century gags into a 1950s story. The gags work better than the story (well they did with the audience I was with).
Unfortunately the White Witch just isn't white enough for me. She could be described as pale. So she's not the pantomime baddie you expect her to look like, but her clothes and her Ice Palace are pretty cheap looking. Bad memories of Die Another Day and Batman & Robin came back - they look good but are totally unbelievable. And when a certain man in a beard turns up you either know it's Father Christmas (because you've read the book) or it's a random man in a beard - i.e. he looks nothing like an image of Father Christmas.
I am being hard with the film, but there are good points to raise. The effects are overall terrific, even if they do conjure up happier memories of a Peter Jackson blockbuster. Aslan does look real, and the beasts have been created with care. Harry Gregson-William's music is good when used in the right scene, but here again it's way too rhythmic and 21st century for the scenarios most of the time.
The acting is good, with Tilda Swinton providing a strong, though not menacing performance. Of the four children, I'd say Lucy was the strongest, though they all did above average work for a film like this.
My main problem with this film lies with director Andrew Adamson. He's a master of CGI work (a-la Shrek) and he deals with the fantasy world well...for a Shrek film, but in my book the vivid colours and style is more suited to a comedy, not a serious fantasy film. And Peter suddenly can wield a sword and ride horses, just like that. Of course everything has to be compared with Lord of the Rings, but in this case, it falls so far short it shouldn't be compared at all. Or maybe I'm being unfair and Narnia isn't supposed to be like Middle-Earth.
Adamson has had to work with a compromised script so that scenes we are meant to feel something in don't work because there's been no emotional build up to (Aslan's introduction is very under whelming, as is conveying his "Legend" status). Then there are the logical mistakes, such as screaming at the top of your voice about how to evade capture when you're only a few feet away from the enemy, or hearing a whisper half a mile away etc.
The allegorical argument is lost on me, I am a person who knows nothing about bible stories, but I think this is an easy recruiting film for the evangelicals in America (who part-financed the film anyway). However, for young children not of the Christian faith, this will simply be a good story.
Overall I give marks for technical prowess and the opening 30 minutes. However the rest of the film is lacklustre to me, a very cynical 22 year old, but I know younger children will enjoy this film a lot, and rightly so. I don't see this franchise living up to the Harry Potter status because, basically, the stories are really dated. LW&W was very faithful to the source novel, but subsequent stories with much less "money-shot action" will no doubt be altered beyond recognition for the lowest common denominator audience. Hopefully the series will be an allegory of Aslan - die soon, then resurrect for the force of good. The later stories deserve better than this.