The Chronicles of Phoney: lame visuals, no ideas, no rhythm.

Rating: 1/10 (5 May 2006)

Here's yet another awful set of (badly) moving images from Diss-ney.
Actors: they don't act. It's shocking how little dramatic direction they got, how flat and emotionless their acting is. Main reason that will make you forget the film 10 minutes after you're out: they just can't act. The kids weren't even cast to look alike (they're supposed to be siblings!). Tilda Swinton, very fine actress most of the time, shouts and acts with grandioso gestures as if she thinks she's in a Lord of the Rings/Harry Potter scale epic... which it isn't.
Director: he doesn't direct either. You'd think there would be interesting camera angles, intelligent editing, mysterious travelings into the forest? No. The cinematography is awful, brightness always makes everything so obvious and plain that all sense of mystery disappears instantly, the sets are almost over-lit sometimes. The camera surely remained locked on its tripod during the whole shoot. It does move a tiny bit during a sleigh chase sequence, only sequence in which something really happens ("happen" might not be the word), and it instantly qualifies as the worst chase sequence in the history of cinema. The action is reduced to some running scared, never gets any better. Even the "war" scene (yes, I know, there aren't supposed to be "war scenes" in films for kids... don't ask me) is disgustingly still and heavily-directed.
Wardrobe design: absolutely horribly disgusting design, the ugliest and stupidest designs for clothes I've seen in long. Whenever the actors wore a different outfit, I could barely restrain myself from laughing because it was even stupider than the previous one. Hence the Witch with her "ice" hat, hilarious it's so ugly.
Computer graphics: the worst I've ever seen. The beavers look like two obese humans, the fox looks like anything BUT a fox, and the LION... oh my, the lion is the worst piece of computer graphics I have ever seen in my life. Anything animatronic would have looked more realistic than this, a man in a lion suit would look more realistic than what they did here, hell, they should even have used a real lion, but this lion is absolutely rotten computer graphics, and makes Godzilla look like a masterpiece of realism and good taste. But you know, nowadays, everything HAS to be computer graphics, n'est-ce pas? Even if it's the phoniest visuals ever seen, they're still going to do it and not question themselves a single second.
The plot: I haven't read the books, I have no interest in religion, Christianity or paganism, and yet when in a kid's film Santa Claus shows up distributing magic whistles, swords, potions and what not, I really can't help wondering why I paid to be watching a film with such stupid ideas. Or maybe the film's target is kids who are yet to be taught that consumerism and bigotry are not the only two ways to see the world. It doesn't go anywhere. The Witch can freeze people, but Aslan can make them live again. You can be wounded, but the magic juice heals your wound instantly. The lion dies, yet the magic stone table gives him his life back. It's not going a-ny-where.
Production design: as cheap and uninventive as the rest of the visuals. The snow looks fake, every supposedly "cold" area depicted in the film is blatantly shot on a sound-stage (they don't even try to add some steam, mist, or anything, when someone talks in the middle of the snow-filled forest, the girls don't sneeze while all they're wearing is stockings and a skirt, etc). Nothing in the atmosphere of the film remotely compares to such fantasy masterpieces as "Legend" (dwarves & unicorns) or "The Adventures of Baron Munchausen" (little girl lost far from home in fantasy world), which were made long before computer graphics and with a lot less money. But with plenty ideas.
Make up effects: bad bad bad bad bad. Once again, totally uninventive, very very cheap-looking, ugly to look at. Just plain ugly.
Cohesion: a lion with no lips saying the word "past". Kids living during World War II who need to fight on horses and with swords to defeat a Witch surrounded by cyclops (why don't they just go out of the closet and go get a good old tommy gun somewhere to get rid of the filthy stinky one-legged scum?). There is NO cohesion. But maybe that's from the books themselves.
To sum up, I'd just say "phoney". Phoney acting, phoney snow, phoney computer graphics, phoney animals, phoney everything, this is the state of the art of phoney. Even if it was made-for-TV, or straight to video, it would be a phoney TV movie. When the film was over and the atrocious song started to play (awful song, really), I hadn't felt like I went on a trip anywhere, I just felt like I was stuck at the bottom of a closet for two hours, talk about escaping! Some people say that the film has a Christian content. The only message I could "read" through the film was that "inside the closet" was better than "out". I'd love to know if it's a Christian message as well?
It is very important that I say that the gratuitous violence, the various occurrences of plain hatred, resent, graphic violence or bodily harm and purposeless humiliation or torture towards friendly characters of the story make this film highly unsuitable for kids under 15 or 16. Disney and the rating associations probably had to work hand-in-hand to get a PG, but the kids that cried and sobbed in the theater when I went and saw the film, I'm sure they didn't hear that.