highly watchable, faithful rendition of the book

Rating: 7/10 (9 December 2005)

This is flawed, but deserves to be a blockbuster. It will appeal to both kids and adults alike, and especially anyone who has read the book.
Stylistically this borrows heavily from LOTR. This gives the movie an epic quality, but also increases the running time, with lots of sweeping landscape shots and shots which drift over the characters from above.
The script is good. It injected humor at the right times, and was quite faithful to the book. I liked the score, but felt that it was a little bit over the top at times. The cinematography was excellent, and looked gorgeous, except for the occasional scene where the actors where slightly out of focus.
The movie was well cast, the actors all suited their roles quite well. The standard of acting was good, but not amazing. The CGI was mixed - Aslan was excellent, the wolves were good, the rest was very mediocre.
The movie doesn't quite flow properly, especially in the second half. There are several instances where the jump between scenes gives the impression that an intermediate scene has been cut out.
But the film is forgiven for any of these flaws - simply because it was a lot of fun to watch. Definitely a cut above most of the pap produced by Hollywood nowadays.