uninspired bore of a movie

Rating: 4/10 (27 December 2005)

I can't possibly believe that anyone would rate this movie over 5/10 ... and that would only be for the effort of making it.
I have to be honest and say that I had my mind made up about the film even before my friend dragged me to the theatre to see it.
The opening shot was promising, I didn't expect the movie to start with a war scene, but that was about the only unexpected thing about it. From the point the kids leave their mother behind and travel to far off places it all turns to bloody sh*te.
The casting agency did a dreadful job and chose 4 of the most annoying actors éver! With one of them even surpassing Home Alone's Macaulay Culkin! At one point of the film I was actually rooting for the Witch to actually kill him, or at least torture him or something.
The visuals are lacking in imagination and are plain dull with a laughable final act that has no suspense whatsoever. And someone should inform Adamson that night scenes need to be lit too ... they were pitch black!
(minor spoiler) And for God's sake, if you're going to kill off a character, LET IT STAY DEAD! Don't create a boring weepy scene only to magically revive the corpse 5 seconds later.
The only good thing (and that's still arguable) about this film was Tilda Swinton. She is and always will be a good actress. But even good actresses can suck in lousy movies ... and she came very close to sucking in this one.
Perhaps all is not lost for the other possible book adaptations. But Walden Media may want to find another director, actors, CGI department if they ever want to compete with the Harry Potter series.