A very rare treat that for two hours made me leave my criticism behind.

Rating: 9/10 (19 January 2006)

I've read Clive Lewis's books and somehow almost liked except the crucial thing he has made in the end of the last book with his heroes that I couldn't neither accept nor understand. However except this one thing I found the books mostly pretty good written so I was quite interested in seeing this adaptation. Somehow the obstacles prevented me from seeing all previous weeks and only yesterday I was able to see it on one of the very last shows in my city and the fact is on the contrary to the majority of high-budgeted movies this year I quite liked it.
The key factor of the success Andrew Adamson's Chronicles of Narnia is that the director found and established a balance between clear Christian thematic elements of the books and values common and understandable to all people. The same thing is about the moral messages of the story, which are pretty clear, comprehensible and suitable for audience all over the world, no matter to what culture we belong to. The adaptation follows the book all the time and we have got all the reasons to call it a very close adaptation. Despite some flaws I believe it's a pretty good adaptation. The movie begins from a scene of German bombings on London and then four children are going to countryside to avoid the danger of the war. Soon the adventure begins and our heroes come into the magical world of Narnia. The winter landscapes were mostly quite convincing but there were some problems related with Edmund's character. The line of the poor boy who is acting that way just because he wants some candy seems not a perfect way to show the character of the hero. It is obvious also that the filmmakers sometimes were forced to make a compromise between a magic world of the book and common sense and cold logic. Some criticism about hypothermia and other things really has the point but I don't see any way for the filmmakers to completely avoid such problem moments. Going further we see in the world on Narnia new landscapes and new wondrous creatures, which are overwhelmingly well created and look quite believable. In the second part of the movie there are obviously a few references (or maybe even borrowing) to Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy but overall Adamson's construction of the oncoming confrontation and the final battle is very impressive, emotional and truly moving. Very good cinematography excellently captured the beauty of the Narnia and successfully transmitted to us all emotions and feelings of the characters.
Another thing in the movie that really fascinated me it's the performances or four young actors, who were playing two brothers (William Moseley and Skandar Keynes as Peter and Edmund) and two sisters (Anna Popplewell and Georgie Henley as Susan and Lucy) Pevensie. Except the one above mentioned moment personalities of their characters are very good developed and all four actors were able to bring these characters perfectly to life with all their feelings, emotions and inner struggles. Tilda Swinton's White Witch is also a rather strong character and her performance glows with perceptible coldness and evil. The sound effects are quite good and the score is a nice supplement to a visual feast on screen while the special effects as already mentioned are also mostly pretty good and believable. Personally I've found some minor problems with minotaurs design but at least they were much more better than in any motion pictures before. But one more time I have to return to Adamson's directing. It's very important that in his first serious live acting movie he resisted the temptation of transforming the story into something adorable from the outside but inwardly shallow and sliding down into superficial and vulgar jokes.
With well-deserved incredible success of the first movie and with Adamson's approach the studio have perfect prospects for creation one of the best franchises in the story of cinema. The Lion, The Witch and Wardrobe is easily one of the very best high-budgeted movies of the year but I have to make the last note. The movie has some violence, which is too strong for PG rating and some frightening sequences so it's mostly suitable for kids over ten or eleven.
My grade 9 out of 10