Narnia movie: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe — Page 3

I went to the Entertainment Weekly screening here in SF tonight. I enjoyed the film, even though there was a screaming baby in the theater - Argh!.
God, Tilda Swinton was so gorgeous in her first appearance (and throughout, but that first scene with her blew me away)! Her performance was my favorite aspect of the film.

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Updated On: 12/8/05 at 03:38 AM

Just got back from an early(ish) screening on the first day of release here in the UK. I really enjoyed the film a lot. It's completely enchanting from start to finish and while it's not perfect, as an opening gambit for the franchise, it's pretty bloody good.

The look of the film is sublime, Narnia is as you imagined it when you read the books. The moment when Lucy first stumbles on the wardrobe is just spine tingling. And the final battle for Narnia is phenomenally done (if slightly botched by the ending of it). For every big exciting moment, there are many small and perfectly judged moments that further everyone's character. It really makes all the difference to a film like this.

Performance wise, the four Pevensey children range as a whole from hugely wooden to utterly natural over the course of the film. I assume that as the shoot went on, they became more at ease with their performances and as I doubt the film was shot in sequence, that would explain the unevenness from scene to scene. I haven't read any of the other Narnia books so I don't know if the Pevensey children are in all of them, but if they are and they retain these 4 actors, I imagine we'll see a Harry Potter style of improvement. James McAvoy is beyond cute as Mr Tumnus. He doesn't have much of a part, but he delivers a memorable performance, particularly his first scene with Lucy. And bear in mind when you watch it that in real life he has a very thick Scottish accent. I had paid no attention to the cast of people voicing the other characters, so it was a pleasant surprise when Ray Winstone, Dawn French, Rupert Everett and of course Liam Neeson all popped up. There is no denying that this film belongs to Tilda Swinton (as I had always hoped it would). She is glacial perfection as the Ice Queen, from her sweeping entrance to her sadly botched demise. Her hair and costumes are fabulous, but her performance is breathtaking. Anyone who can imbue the line "for sweeties" with as much resonance as she can deserves all the plaudits going.

Some moments are fudged and rushed, and some characters aren't given nearly enough breathing space (Jim Broadbent most prominently). There's some ropey FX work too. But those are my only real criticisms. The religious imagery is there if you want to look for it but it doesn't batter you about the head and shout "look! Jesus!" or anything. All in all, it's top quality entertainment.

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Rotten Tomatoes is reporting that it's opening at 80% fresh, so far. Which is great. Brokeback Mountain is at 84%, Mrs Henderson at 75% while Geisha is shockingly rotten, scoring just 45%.

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I liked the BBC series- the kids were good but the animatronics/puppets were a bit "off". Still, very much anticipating the film am taking my older neice & her friend- love watching their faces @ this kinda thing!

I'm beyond excited for this movie. Going back in my memory I'm pretty sure the Narnia books were the first things I ever felt really passionate about, and I've reread them five million times over the years. My favorites are TLTWATW, The Magician's Nephew, and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (this is one of those books that you feel like could be 500 pages longer). I even did a musical based on TLTWATW once a long time ago, I played Peter. Anybody else ever see/do one? For all the talk of the allegorical nature of the stories, they're just blatantly mythological takes on the most popular myth out there. I mean, there are centaurs (greek) in them. You just have to take it with a grain of salt if you are not a Christian.

Disney produced it right? I'm glad everybody is giving it a good review, I'm going tonight^_^ LOTR is the Jesus fantasy for adults, Narnia can be the Jesus fantasy for all us kiddums.

PS I think the bible often references Jesus as a lion or as a lamb (at one point in the Narnia series he shows up as a lamb rather than a lion, I think in Silver Chair) so I guess it's not so silly to paint him as a lion.

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LOTR is the Jesus fantasy for adults, Narnia can be the Jesus fantasy for all us kiddums.

Kinda off-topic, but how is LOTR a Jesus fantasy? Although there are a few vague allusions here and there (Gandalf being resurrected, for instance), Tolkien's world is more inspired by Anglo-Saxon myth than anything else. Tolkien specifically didn't want his Middle-Earth stories to be allegorical, and actually chided Lewis for creating a fantasy that so clearly shows its roots in Christian mythology.

People often compare Tolkien and Lewis, but I find that Lewis' work more closely resembles Spenser's THE FAERIE QUEENE, both in the use of allegory and in the way the chronicles unfold in an almost inexplicable and boundless world.

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Updated On: 12/9/05 at 01:54 PM

This movie is awesome. Highly, highly recommended by me. And yes, the church groups came and had one person sit in the theater to reserve twenty seats (i.e. by saying "you can't sit in these two rows!").

Tolkien's Christian inspiration is much more apparent in The Silmarillion, the beginning of which reads just like a literary form of Genesis. However, Tolkien abhorred the thought of his works being allegorical. (Actually, Lewis denied that Narnia was an allegory: “But it is not, as some people think, an allegory. That is, I don’t say, ‘Let us represent Christ as Aslan’ I say ‘Suppose there was a world like Narnia, and supposing like ours, it needed redemption, let us imagine what sort of Incarnation and Passion and Resurrection Christ would have there.’ See?”)

Well, history has looked upon Lord of the Rings as a possible Christian allegory among other things (mostly because of Tolkien's personal faith), so I guess I was kind of making a bad joke about how Hollywood gets the bible belt to see things. I would agree that its sources draw much more heavily from celtic and norse mythology, Wagner, all kinds of stuff. Really, both stories are filled with all sorts of rag tag mythological references and general themes people have been writing about for millenia (Even Jesus is precursored by mythology). It's unfair to say "Oh this is clearly an allegorical story about Jesus" ever, I guess. Unless you're speaking about The Last Battle.

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Haha, very funny. The eight year old somewhere in me still likes them though :)

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I wouldn't worry too much about Christian promotions of the film. If they feel it's a good thing for church groups to see, that's fine. No one group gets to own a story, especially a classic like Narnia.

I just got back from the movie and I loved it. I grew up reading the novels and watching the BBC movies of The Chronicles of Narnia, and watching this movie took me back to my childhood! I thought it was really well done. I'm Christian and am fascinated by the Christian symbolism, but I still think it's a great story that anyone can appreciate. On a funny note, I saw the movie with my family, and afterwards my dad and I had the following conversation:

Dad: "I thought Gwyneth Paltrow did a great job."
Me: "Um, Gwyneth Paltrow wasn't in that movie."
Dad: "Yes she was, she was the witch."
Me: "No, that was Tilda Swinton."
Dad: "Are you sure?"
Me: "Yeah."