An eighties child through and through

Rating: 3/10 (19 December 2005)

A very poor attempt at improvement for those of us old enough to enjoy the BBC version. My advice is read the book - the "special" effects aren't "special" (remember Blue Peter riding on Aslan?!?), and as with so many films they try to cram so much into such a short space of time that it becomes disjointed, loses all semblance of a story and becomes a producer's excuse to show off - which in this case pays off poorly. I can understand why it has received higher ratings: it is harmless, has morals and stirs up the warm glow inside all of us, but at the end of the day, it has been done better before (just not for cinema or DVD). Sometimes the beauty in the story is the understanding of the plot, of the weekly wait for the next installment, and the development of the characters; this film had none of these and I feel for all those people who rated it highly, as they had obviously missed out on the regular weekend episodes which chronicled Narnia when I was a child (And no, it wasn't that long ago, and yes, I didn't think I'd be catching myself writing those "In my days...." comments yet!).