Entertaining, but doesn't capture the spirit of Narnia

Rating: 6/10 (22 December 2005)

I would say that although this movie has it's entertaining moments, it can't hold a candle to the old BBC and animated versions. Although the music was quite good in the new movie, it lacked the great theme which conveys the magic of Narnia in this old TV version and also the animated version which also has a nice theme, a big mistake I thought to open the movie with an Alanis Morissette song. Without a truly great magical theme I never got the sense that it was even Narnia that the children went to whenever they went through the wardrobe.
I'd heard that the new film was a very faithful version of the book, but when I saw it I thought it was far from that to me. Virtually every line from the book had been altered and it was so corny to hear Ray Winstone's Mr Beaver use of cockney slang "geezer". The way Mr Tumnus constantly referred to Lucy as "Lucy Pevensie" was also very annoying, seeming as in the books the children's' surname isn't revealed until after The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. However both the old BBC version and the animated version, take virtually all their lines from CS Lewis's book. I don't know whether I'm too picky being a Lewis fan but to me even the way the children were shown to be riding talking horses in the film was like heresy, not only are they not mentioned to ride talking horses in the book, but also in The Horse and His Boy, we are told that no Narnian would ever dream of riding a talking horse because it was seen as derogatory to them, Bree only allowed Shasta to do it because he needed him to escape from Calormen.
However all being said it was nice to see with a bigger budget and improved effects, a more realistic depiction of talking animals, and a truly stunning battle scene at the end, unlike the few pathetic animated creatures that are used for the flimsy battle at the end of the BBC version, but at the end of the day faithfulness to Lewis's book is far favourable to superior effects and action.