A film that judges critics

Rating: 10/10 (7 April 2006)

I am sure by now that most people know the story. I would suggest that our views of this motion picture are, far more than is the usual case, predicated not upon the movie as upon ourselves. This has been the case with other pictures as well, most notably Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ". To rate "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" depends on what one brings to the film. For a Christian who loves Lewis, it is a 10. For a Christian who does not know or does not like Lewis, it is a 7. For a non-Christian who likes Lewis (and I have known at least one orthodox Jewish woman who loved Lewis) it is an 8 or 9. For a non-Christian who does not like Lewis, it is a 6. For a non-Christian who does not know Lewis, it is a 7. For an insecure post-Christian, it is a solid 1. For a mythical dispassionate viewer, for anyone who remembers his or her own best childhood hopes, it is 9. Better than the TV version because of the advances in special effects, this is a fil crammed with small and beautiful touches. But it does help if one likes cats!