Disney shouldn't make anymore of the Chronicles

Rating: 3/10 (11 December 2005)

This movie was way, way, way below my expectations and was a pathetic final product for the amount of money spent on its production. It seemed like I was watching a wildlife preserve rather than a magical kingdom with all the animals randomly appearing throughout the movie in the corners of the screen. The CGI was crap. It was so unrealistic, they could have used stop-motion techniques like in the Nightmare Before Christmas and it would have been 10 times better. There was also a shortage of dialogue. I suppose the actors and actresses had a difficult time remembering their lines. Most of the scenes that involved character interaction were nothing more than people staring at each other, then crying or smiling, then hugging. The fight choreography was embarrassing. If you can fight the way Peter and Edmond did to win the fight for Narnia, then you're probably fighting in the land of pansies.
There was absolutely no character development whatsoever and there was not a decent introduction to the story. Without at least a little background or plot outline, nobody cares about what will transpire for the next two hours! Which creatures are on whose side? How did the White Witch come to power? Why are the children staying with a professor that appears to do nothing but smoke a pipe and lock himself in his room all day? It seemed like whoever edited the movie went back and re-spliced additional footage from scenes that went too long and placed it into the original version of the film to break up the action, causing the flow of the movie to suffer terribly. I read the books a long time ago as a kid and thought that they would eventually make great movies someday. But Mr. Adamson was definitely the wrong choice to helm this project.
Spielberg could have made this movie a blockbuster with one hand holding onto ET. Narnia's fantasy characters were also crap. Seriously, they must have hired 1st year makeup students from liberal arts colleges to design the creatures with spray paint, play dough, hot glue guns and heads from dead animals. And Liam Neeson as Aslan? Sorry, it just doesn't work. He doesn't have a voice with a lot of forcefulness. Get somebody like Sean Connery for crying out loud! If you haven't read the books, you'll just plod along with the movie and you probably won't care at all for Lucy, Susan, Peter or Edmond, or even Aslan when he gets sacrificed, or what happens to Narnia for that matter. The producers were obviously trying very hard to make this movie feel exactly like the Lord of the Rings trilogy. The castle designs, panoramic shots of the battlefield and camps, and the camera work are such a rip off from Peter Jackson that its nauseating. To top it all off, people in the audience were laughing at how comical the acting was, especially when Susan kills the White Witch's henchman (talk about a dwarf with an attitude problem). It was one of the worst action scenes I have ever seen that involved saving someones life in the nick of time. This was a huge waste of $15 for my wife and I. Don't see this movie unless you take something to enhance your movie going experience before entering the theater.