The lion, the witch and the wardrobe

I liked this film. I enjoyed it a fair bit.

Like many people my age I grew up reading C.S.Lewis books. As a kid I really enjoyed some of this series (although I was less keen on others). I also watched the BBC adaptions of some of the books. I never picked up on the religious overtones of the stuff which I guess are more obvious to me now.

I was glad that Disney had kept the English wartime setting for the book. Everything seems to be very 'proper' in a stiff upper lip sort of way. I liked the detail in the evacuation scenes and the blitz/bomb-shelter section that serves as a prelude to the main story. I watched this film with a close friend who is German and she didn't know anything about the evacuation of children from British cities during the war.

In some ways I felt that this film was a better adaptive interpretation of the original book than the recent 'lord of the rings' and 'harry potter' films. I think that 'the lion....' was probably easier to adapt because the original story was less action packed and less detailed than those other childhood fantasy films. LOTR and Harry Potter films are always at risk of giving me a headache because so much happens in them. 'The lion...' moves at a gentiler place allowing for subtle moments of humour and pathos and some tiny scares. (my friend jumped a couple of times cos she hasn't read the books and didn't know when to expect a scary bit)

Some of this film is scary and some of it is sad. The pseudo-christian 'crucifixion' scene is upsetting and I wouldn't let a young child watch it. I think it could cause nightmares. This is a kids film that seems to be aimed at adults.

In summary, I liked this film. It stayed faithful to my 20 years old memories of the book. It wasn't watered down or sugar-coated. It was not obviously evangelical. It did the job in a workman-like manner.

See it if you liked the book. Write a comment if you disagree.