Badmovies.org Forum

My wife's office essentially purchases the local theatre for an afternoon so everyone can go to the movie, kids and all.  This year, the chosen flick was The Chronicles of Narnia.

The theatre is an old timey one with an actual stage between the front row of seats and the big screen.    You know the kind; it has an entrance on the sidewalk downtown and  real marquee over the door.  I grew up going to a theatre like this before the Ruby multiplex (it was two, then three screens, now I think it is five; they accomplished this growth by chopping the rooms ever smaller) moved in.  This weekend's viewing brought back memories of my youth.

The Chronicles of Narnia is a good story, and, in my opinion, well executed in this movie.  The story follows four kids as they enter a fairy tale land via the back of a wardrobe in an otherwise empty room. Once in that land, they find that they are the subject of a prophecy to rescue the land from the evil White Witch.

Those of you who do not like CGI may likely balk at this movie, but I'd say: give it a chance.  I have to say that the CG was good, but not always "photorealistic."  (Note: this is often done on purpose by the CGI wizards to emphasize the make-believeness of their characters...I've seen some truly photorealistic CGI, and it would take your breathe away).  Aslan, the rightful king of Narnia, was very well done and one is hard pressed to find him "only" a CGI character; he was given wonderful warmth by the voice of Liam Neeson (the only actor in Narnia well known to US audiences)

Narnia was directed by Andrew Adamson, the CGI veteran director of Shrek and Shrek2.  I liked the pacing, as there were few "down" moments that were not story driven.  Indeed, Narnia held the attention of my 3 year old daughter and this was her first movie at a sit-down (non drive-in) theatre.  Adamson created a very evil villain (The White Witch) with very little overt evilness on screen.  There was one scene, however, which was pretty brutal for a film of this type: when Aslan, bound, was dragged to the table by the Witch's minions.  On the way home, my wife commented that scene was pretty difficult to watch.

I really enjoyed The Chronicles of Narnia, and it left me touched.  Compared to the last Fx extravaganza I watched (wasted money on), a rental of Revenge of the Sith, this is a GREAT movie.  Narnia shows that a 'live action' CGI vehicle can be story driven, entertaining and have likable characters.

5/5, and I highly recommend it to the movie buffs on this board (even those of you not thrilled with CGI, :) ).

Cool, I'm a fan of the book series, and we have the animated veresion of the Lion, Witch etc at home which is a childhood enjoyment of mine.

I think there was also a TV series which was pretty good as well.  So to hear that the movie is good is nice to hear.  From the trailers it looks quite like Lord of the Rings crossed with Harry Potter, which isn't actually a bad thing, so all in all I'm looking foward to it.

Oh and I know of no possible way that the altar seen could be shown without being hard to watch, that's always been a sad, terrible part of the story.

This was the first book that I ever read. I was forced to read it for school and although I made a big deal of it, deep down I enjoyed the hell out of it. I recall bits and pieces of the story as this was quite a long time ago but I have been interested in seeing this movie since I heard of it. Thanks for posting your thoughts on it ulthar, it sounds like it may be worth seeing after all.

Glad to hear that the movie went over well, it does not open here till xmas day. Guess we will take the family to the theater on xmas after the tornado of wrapping paper.

*shrugs* This kind of stuff was fine for me when I was a kid, but I couldn't sit through this type of thing these days without feeling like I was being talked down to. When real lions are being hunted by poachers, who cares... but make one a talking christian allegory and suddenly it's a heart-rending image. *shakes head*

It never hurts us all to have moments where we are kids at heart. In addition, I got great joy from taking MY KIDS to this movie.  If it's not your cup of tea, that's fine, too.

I finally got to see this movie this weekend. I was very pleased with the way Disney handled the story; it was treated with respect, not Disneyfied into a cutesie, happy story. The effects were very well done overall; the movie is full of CGI effects, but they are not the focus of the movie (or of any given scene, for that matter); they are there to support the story, so they work.

It was a bit odd for me to watch on a personal level because the girl who plays Lucy looks very much like a cross between my niece and my daughter at that age, and the girl who plays Susan looks a bit like another niece of mine. Family reunion in the wardrobe, anyone?

Note to Just Plain Horse: While you are certainly entitled to your opinion, one could say the same about almost any death in movies. People die of cancer every day, but tell a story about a sports hero who dies of the disease, and it's heart-rending. People are murdered every day, but tell the story of one on film, and the audience will cry their eyes out. Yes, real lions are being hunted by poachers, and it's a horrible crime, but the Aslan character represents more than just a lion in the story, so his self-sacrifice does mean more in terms of the story than an lion that has been hunted and killed. In this case, it is a Christian allegory, but in other movies, the noble sacrifice is just as heart-rending without the Christian overtones (see Star Trek II and the sacrifice of Spock, for example). Oops, I went on for longer than I intended.

Having just seen this movie (shortly after reading the book series)  I was very impressed with how it was handled.  They even managed to find an actress to play Lucy that had IMHO a striking resemblence to the girl in the BBC series.

I have, however, fallen madly in love with the Witch.....