The Chronicles Of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe

Rating: 6/10 (10 December 2005)

The Chronicles Of Narnia: The Lion, The With And The Wardrobe is based on the novel of the same name by C.S. Lewis. The film takes place in England during World War 2 and is about four siblings. There names are Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy. To keep them safe from the war they are sent away to live with a professor. One day while playing in the big house Lucy discovers that if you enter the wardrobe you will enter a winter land called Narnia. Her siblings do not believe her, but finally they look for themselves and see that Lucy was not lying. The siblings make friends with the local creatures who tell them that the land is cursed by the evil witch Jadis who has cursed the land to always be winter time. The animals protect the siblings from Jadis and they are introduced to a lion named Aslan who shows them that they are the only ones who will be able to save Narnia from the evil queen. The end results in a battle between good and evil and the fate of Narnia rests on their shoulders. The film has good direction, good performances by the entire cast, good cinematography, good art direction and good set decoration. The film started out really promising and I thought I would quite like it, but by the end I was quite disappointed. I thought the film was well made and it is a good looking film, but mainly I had trouble with the film's pacing. As I mentioned before, when the film started out I found it quite interesting, but as it went along I felt it dragged and soon it became slower and slower to the point where I was getting bored with the film. I feel that if perhaps the film had been trimmed and edited a little better that this may not be the case. I felt the end (especially the battle scenes) just went on for far too long and I just lost my interest. The book that this film is based on is quite popular and I'm sure that many people will really enjoy this film. I say this because I' am personally very picky when it comes to adventure/fantasy films. Really popular films such as The Lord Of The Rings just do not interest me and I think that this is a film that falls in the same category. I 'am sure that many adventure and fantasy film fans will enjoy this movie and me not really being a fan of the genre will stick with my opinion that I did not like it. However I do feel that I could have liked this movie with a little better pacing and editing. But as it stands I can appreciate the direction and the way the film looks, but other than that this film was just not for me.