Well-made and enjoyable....but.....

Rating: 7/10 (10 June 2007)

Technically speaking, this was an excellent film. Up until very recently, doing a competent live-action version of THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE was really impossible because the special effects were technically impossible to do and still make them look real. Now, thanks to computers and incredible software, it is possible to get the look right of the book and Disney did a great job. And, having read the books, I was impressed that they got the story right. The problem for me, though, was that although everything seemed to fit just fine, the story itself didn't fully engage me. Perhaps I'm just getting old, but after this eye-candy was over, I just felt a great sense of "is that all there is?". The biggest problem related to this were that the LORD OF THE RING movies were so great, so grand and so wonderful that this left this film in the category of "also ran". You just can't help but compare the films and when this occurs, the depth and complexity of the Peter Jackson films is apparent.