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Narnia – where it’s always winter and never Christmas; where evil rules, the righteous are punished, and the new guy is king. Or, as it’s more popularly known, Corporate America . . .
The Chronicles of Narnia begins when a mother sends her four children away from London to stay with a reclusive professor to protect them from the fighting of World War II. One day while playing hide-and-seek in the professor’s estate, the youngest (Lucy) hides in a wardrobe only to discover an entrance to the hidden land of Narnia . Eventually, all the children find the magical passage into Narnia where they are thrown headlong into a battle of good against evil. Narnia was once a place of beauty and tranquility but has been plunged into a constant state of winter by the evil force, the White Witch. The Witch entices the youngest boy, Edmund, to leave his siblings and join her. The other children are joined by mythical creatures and talking animals to fight the battle against evil in order to take their rightful place as kings and queens of Narnia and restore beauty to the land. The children must trust in themselves and the strength and wisdom of the Lion, Aslan, to ultimately conquer evil.
Big budget movies based on popular books seem to be intended as either studio cash machines or tributes to the original work; Narnia is likely both. The popularity of the book severely limits the filmmaker’s flexibility with the story, and good stories don’t necessarily translate well from one medium to another. While Narnia is interesting and entertaining, it falls far short of compelling. The visual experience is exceptional and characters superb, but otherwise it’s too long, too predictable, and – like most fairy tales turned Hollywood movies – too complicated to allow the audience to adequately suspend disbelief. The ever-changing rules of the movie’s universe make it so the good guys can’t help but win; which may work fine for children, but ruins it for adults.
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On the Movie Night Traffic Light on a scale of GREEN meaning “Go – it’s a must see”, YELLOW meaning “Caution – it’s okay” and RED meaning “No - stop don’t do it."
We rate The Chronicles of Narnia YELLOW. Caution – although an amazing feat of computer generated effects, the story is very long and pretty violent for a PG rated movie. |
