Not expecting much and received even less

Rating: 1/10 (10 December 2005)

I went to watch this movie expecting it to be the usual winter big budget movie (not much substance park your brain at the door but still entertaining), but came away very disappointed.
The Positives: The special effects were quite good! Aslan was amazing.
Sadly though, that is all I can say that was good with this movie. They spent too much time trying to awe you with scenery and cgi characters rather than developing the movie. There was almost no character development so I failed to connect or care about the characters. I think a better casting job could have been done for the main characters. Tilda looked excellent as the White Witch, but she came across as a clichéd evil witch in a movie. The children were for the most part annoying. I'm not sure if this is in part, the children have limited acting experience, or if the director failed to make the characters interesting (ala George Lucas failing to make you care for the characters in Star Wars episode I II II). It's never good when the most engaging characters in the movie are cgi generated Beavers. They basically glossed over the plot of the movie leaving out parts that were key to making audience understand the underlying motivation for the characters.
As sad as I am to say this, I wish I never watched this movie. The failure to make the characters interesting sinks this movie for me. I was ready to leave the theatre after 45 minutes.
As a counter to my opinion, my Girlfriend enjoyed the movie very much.