Okay, for those that didn’t read my expectations I feel I must point out that I read the book about 25 years ago and it is one of the few books that I have never felt I had to reread.
For the most part the actors are well played, Tilda Swinton makes a great White Witch, and the brief appearance of James Cosmo and Jim Broadbent were very well done, the same can’t be said about CGI characters. The Bickering Bickersons, I mean the Beavers were a little monotonous after a while, watching the not as majestic as it should have been Aslan and not quite believable giants, dwarves, ogres, and Cyclops also made it a long movie. I will give the minotaurs strong marks however, you can tell who Disney spent the CGI budget on.
There is a huge acting problem in this movie and it is so small most people wouldn’t even notice the problem. There is no awe in the four actos when ever they run into some new and magical. In talking about the problem I think it is like the inability to see the forest for all the trees.
Okay so I am not sure of my opinion of the child actors, so I will skip mentioning them.
The cinematography was sometime very good and other times very bland (and occasionally unbelievable). When Lucy first enters the wardrobe the cinematography is very well done however the second and third times it unacceptably bad. I am not sure if it the cinematographers fault or the directors, but I really want to blame the cinematographer since he should have known better.
A director once told me that directing children is the hardest thing to direct as they don’t necessarily understand the gamut of emotions they are supposed to demonstrate. This movie clearly shows that problem. Unlike a number of CGI filled movies where actors stare into nothing the actors in this movie seem to missing awe. Which is hard to understand as a viewer.
Most of the special effects were very good the exception Aslan mouth which is always bad, I think human mouth movements didn’t look right. A number of the special effects are not up to par with the rest of the movie. The scene on the river is one of those that is just bad. It’s like they ran out of money for that scene and just used a first run copy of the effect.
I am not sure if it is because of the Theater I saw the movie in or if the sound track is just off but there were a lot of echoes in the movie which I did not if they belonged there or not.
I liked the background music during the movie only once or twice did it distract from the movie.
In the end the movie has a lot of things going for it, however it could have been sooo much better. My Boss of years past always told me to do things 100%, because 80% of the work could be done with 20% of the work, but it is the other 20% that people remember. In this case I agree with the Movie critic from the Pioneer Press Chris Hewitt, “Watching The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is like being told a terrific story by a so-so storyteller."
Jeff rating 7.5 (out of 10)