Decent attempt but must try harder

Rating: 6/10 (7 February 2007)

I came to The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe with some trepidation as I adore the BBC series that was done some years ago and did not think it could easily be topped by simply introducing some CGI. I was right.
However, in it's defence, it was better than I was led to believe it would be by other peoples responses to it. I think that if I had come to it fresh or just from reading the book I would have got on with it a bit better.
One of the main problems I had with the film was the children themselves. Now I always found Peter and Susan vaguely annoying in the book/TV series for being too 'goody-goody' so I wasn't surprised at my dislike for them. But Edmund had always been my favourite character by far and I found him detestable in this. And not simply in the way you are supposed as he is a traitor etc because, as I said, I liked his character in the book. Lucy I found a little too wide-eyed and vacant but she grew on me throughout the film. I think I just found her a little too young for the role, it made it a little unbelievable.
Now to the other characters. Good job with the beavers, they were spot on. Mr Tumnus seems to have been transformed from a likable if initially misguided character into a creepy slightly paedophilic figure which disturbed me somewhat. The wolves I found too 'cute', nowhere near as scary as in the TV series (yes, OK, they were more realistic (especially since some real!) but not terrifying like they should be). Dwarfs, ghouls, fawns etc all OK, didn't stand out as particularly good or bad.
Tilda Swinton spot on as the white witch. Could not have thought of anyone better to cast in this role. She always has a menacing, slightly psychotic air which is perfect. Not convinced on Liam Neeson as Aslan, I thought a deeper, more authoritative voice would have been better but I got used to it.
Now I don't know how long the TV series was but this film felt far too condensed  it's a long time since I read the book but I got the feeling there was a lot missing, I just can't quite place what.
I also disliked the battle scenes, they seem to have fallen into the CGI trap of 'lets show what we can do and how impressive it can be' rather than showing specific parts of the battle with key characters in detail. There was a little bit of close-up but nowhere near enough to show the true intensity of a battle.
One thing I did like is that I found that they kept the whole Christian thing quite low key (I know others didn't think this from the posts on the message boards but I did). I never spotted this in the books as a child and when I learnt it as an adult it disappointed me greatly as I am not Christian and do not agree with Christianity. It ruined the books for me to a degree when I thought back over them and I thought they did a good job stopping it from taking over the film.
Here's hoping they manage to improve on what they've done so far and make Prince Caspian better  hopefully the children will have grown into their roles more improving that side and I'm praying (excuse the irony!) that they avoid the 'just throw CGI at them' approach for the battles.
Overall, well worth watching if you haven't seen the TV series, otherwise you may want to avoid if that lies close to your heart!