Narnia

For those who go into Narnia expecting The Lord of the Rings, it is possible this movie will be a disappointment. But for those who go into it with an understanding that similar thematic elements does not mean it is going to be another version of the same movie, they will find everything necessary to have a good time at the movies.

From the start of the film, I was confident that the filmmakers knew what they were doing and except for one or two missteps, they did a wonderful job of translating CS Lewis' novel to the big screen.

At first I was a bit disoriented by the addition of the air raids, but I quickly realized the necessity of including the raid to ground a modern audience in the story’s period and environment. In 1950, the British readers would have needed nothing more than Lewis’ line “they were sent away from London during the war because of the air raids.” Seeing the bombings on screen and watching the children being sent away quickly and economically introduced the children and oriented our emotions. We learn who Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy are, and the emotional upheaval of being sent to the country helps us understand Edmund later.

I liked that the filmmakers trusted us to watch the movie and "get" the point of the little details. We didn't linger too long on the poster which explained why the children were being sent to the country; we didn't have long exposition about "Father" being away at war and Edmund missing him. We were trusted to understand what we were being shown, and I appreciated that.

As for casting, I thought Edmund, Peter, and Lucy were well-cast. Susan is prettier in my mind, but not to the point where I was distracted by how “wrong” the casting was. The professor was wrong, though. He was too cozy, quirky. I see him as, well, I guess I see him as Anthony Hopkins playing CS Lewis. His on-screen time is brief, so that wasn't too bad.

Tilde Swinton was a brilliant white witch. Jadis is written as a woman “devastatingly beautiful” but evil. Swinton’s performance let us see how beautiful a woman Jadis could be but for her evil nature showing through. She hit all the right notes in her seduction of Edmund.

The few missteps for me included the portrayal of the Beavers as a slightly gentler version of Alice and Ralph Kramden, Mr. Beaver’s irreverent way of referring to Aslan, and the reveal of the wardrobe.

I suppose the filmmakers felt they had to insert the “humor” of the Beavers because they were too “nice” to suit modern audiences. The wardrobe reveal, where little Lucy finds the wardrobe in the middle of a hide-and-seek game, was a little too dramatic. It wasn’t so much a dramatic misstep as a directorial one for the actress. She was a little too excited to find the wardrobe, when as far as she knows at this point, it’s just an ordinary wardrobe. But they could have still had the dramatic drape fall, and it would have been just fine.


Father Christmas’ scene seemed a little too perfunctory to me. Almost as though the filmmakers didn’t get the point of his scene, but it was necessary to get the children their gifts. So they stuck it in as quickly as possible.


As an aside: We missed a chunk of the lead up to the climax where Peter is talking to Aslan before the battle because the film burned. I’ve never actually seen film burning.


I’ve heard complaints that the battle scene is too sanitized, but I don’t think you could have a LOTR battle in the middle of a much gentler movie without it seeming out of place. If anything, the battle is dramatically enhanced in the movie vs in the book.

That’s pretty much it. Frankly, it is one of the better movie adaptations I've ever seen. It managed to keep the same tone, themes, necessary plot points, characterization and still be a good movie. For example, the Harry Potter movies can be watched as simple illustrations of the books and they hit the necessary plot points, the characters ring true, etc., but I don’t find them to be very good movies on their own. On the other hand, Gone With the Wind is a good movie, but it doesn’t adhere to the book exactly. Narnia adheres to the purpose and tone of Lewis’ vision and remains a good movie even for those who haven’t ever read the book.