Review :: Lion Witch and Wardrobe

It was a great movie. There were deviations from the book, but fairly minor in consequence. The book was better, but when isn’t that true? In a book everything is exactly as you picture it. For instance I always pictured Susan as a blonde…I’m not sure why. The bottom line though, is in a movie you understand what is going on without having to worry about whether a prop guy made the sword look believable, so those sorts of things don’t get in the way. I know what I think a narnian sword should look like, so when I picture it, it works – no questions. When a movie is released though all of the little things that might get glossed over in your imagination suddenly HAVE to be right or else it jumps out at you.

(Caution, some teeny tiny spoiler information if you’ve never read the books)
The movie was still awesome though, in my humble-ish opinion. Since I'm sure no one will read this I'll go ahead and say that as someone who has read and loved the books and views them as an example of using literature to discuss deep truths (similar to The Lord of the Rings), there were more than a couple points where I was having to try really hard not to cry. The imagery (whether actually present in the movie or brought to it by my own experiences/imagination) was just amazing in so many places. It's entirely possible that in the scene where Lucy and Susan are walking with Aslan in the woods (myself knowing what was coming...) I may have actually shed a couple tears, despite my most earnest efforts. I guess I can’t accurately describe the emotions that welled up in my as Aslan spoke to/mentored Peter, or corrected Edmund, or as they all sat on their thrones.

I think they did a great job of interpreting the book and keeping it true to the original work. I loved Lucy and just thought she was one of the cutest little kid actors I’ve seen recently. If it weren’t for Aslan she TOTALLY would have stolen the movie. Also, I was pleased that it wasn’t totally cartoony, heavy-handed, preachy, or secular. It was a wonderful balance of funny, serious, spiritual, and dramatic. Much koodos and I can only hope you all go see it. I’ll admit I want you to see it for selfish reasons, hopefully it will do amazing at the box office and they will simply have to do the other books in the series. Voyage of the Dawn Treader? The Magicians Nephew? The Final Battle? How cool would these others be with the action sequences, the story lines? Oh man.