Monday, December 12, 2005

Narnia

See it. I only recently started reading the books, and I saw a lot of the books as skimming over details that would have made for an interesting story, and getting a bit bogged down in details that might have made interesting reading for a little girl (the first book was written for a girl about Lucy's age), but sometimes (at least in the first few written) can seem a little dull or even condescending. The movie expanded on a lot of the scenes that were skimmed over, or completely left out of the book, and trimmed some of the conversations that, when read, drag on. It made for an extremely tight, well-made film. Honestly, I've never seen a better shot scene of Germans carpet-bombing London during WWII than the first scene of this movie, and that was only hinted at in the book. The kids were very good actors for their age, the younger ones actually being somewhat more impressive than the older ones.

Some scenes could have been more intense, and I certainly imagined the Stone Table scenes more intense, but this was already pretty heavy duty for the younger audience at which it was targeted.

Really, the only way I wouldn't recommend this movie is if you have read the books and didn't much enjoy them. If you haven't read them, you want to see this movie. If you read them and enjoyed them, even a little bit, you want to see this movie.

4 comments:

Ben, aka BadBen said...

I read the books when I was in middle school, many moons ago. At the time, I didn't like Lewis as much as Tolkien, but it's still fairly good fantasy.
I'm going to go see it with my grandson next weekend. The PG rating makes me feel better about taking a small child to see it.

Anonymous said...

By "first book," do you mean The lion, the Witch, and The Wardrobe, or The Magician's Nephew?

John said...

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. That was the first one written and published. The Magician's Nephew was listed as first when Harper Collins took over the publishing, because it was deemed to be chronologically first by the editors.

Crazy Jane said...

If you get the latest edition of the Chronicles of Narnia that Harper Collins published that has all 7 books in one, it's in CS Lewis's preferred order (and when you read it, you understand why...I've just started Prince Caspian): The Magician's Nephew, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, A Horse and His Boy, Prince Caspian, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, The Silver Chair, The Last Battle. I totally got goosebumps when, at the end of The Magician's Nephew, you find out what the tie-in/lead-in to The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe is! I can't wait to see the movie!!