too surreal for its own good.

Rating: 5/10 (6 January 2006)

In light of the recent fantasy novel-to-movie wave, I think it's safe to say that they're all a bit over indulged. When the height of realism in computer graphics stops wowing people like it use to, and this fad of film begins to slow, we will look on the Chronicles of Narnia as the weakest of these.
All in all Chronicles of Narnia was an average film. Its strongest point was its epic production scale. That couldn't save it at all. Yes, the graphics are stunning, but there's a huge problem with it all. The contrasts, the colors, everything in it that is CG or design is far too bright. Yes, Narnia is a magical, fictional world, but so is Tolkein's Middle Earth and J.K. Rowling's Hogwarts. Their worlds do not make people's eyes bleed. And neither should Narnia. While watching the film everything is simply far too vibrant. Even scenes that should be dark and ominous, like ones with the White Witch and her minions, and scenes of death and battles.
It really killed the film for me. Every field was lime green, every tent and garment of Narnia was a lively red and white, brand new and untainted. It made the White Witch seem far less evil than she really was. And the death of Aslan was simply unmoving with a pink and yellow sunset adorning its background.
I could go on about it forever, but I'll leave it at this. Just because you're in an imaginary world, doesn't mean you don't have to convince your audience the place is real.
Moving on, the acting was alright, but nothing worth noting. The casting was well done, yet at the same time the screen play killed the good choice of actors. I know you have to fit hundreds of pages of a book into a 2 hour film, but it's not like Peter picks up a sword and suddenly knows how to slaughter hundreds of minions of evil. I had trouble playing along with the film in this aspect, too.
Some of it was too quick, some if it was too slow. A lot of things were done right, but other things were done wrong. I'm not trying to be negative about this film. I loved the books as a child and one would think I'd have a huge positive bias in favor of this film. Yet in many ways this is a very disappointing movie and unlike most cases I'm going to throw in the towel saying I'd rather be reading the book than watching this film.
5/10