Good scenes, poor characters and plot

Rating: 4/10 (26 December 2005)

The movie improves on the book in several respects -- visually powerful (especially for Aslan, battles, and fauns), more focused and coherent, with the seeming factual nature of film bolstering credibility. Aside from those, the movie is a junk shop of what are presumed to be children's desires -- to be powerful, good, admired and magical. However, the movie is a wicked witch, offering a few short-term pleasures in an attempt to seduce the young. Let me mention as an illustration the main plot assumption: all good-hearted creatures are unified by the desire to put four bickering children on thrones as co-rulers of a non-human world. There is never a hint of why this fantasy might be an undesirable reality, because anything undesirable can be removed with a potion, prophecy or an attitude adjustment.