Originally Reviewed
Saturday April 8, 2006
The Chronicles of Narnia is another film adaptation of a book I have never heard of before, written before I was born and now all of a sudden popular again. Written by well known author C.S. Lewis, friend of J.R.R. Tolkien author of The Lord of the Rings. Now is it me or did anyone else sense that Narnia had a whole lot in common with The Lord of the Rings? I saw a lot of resemblances, so either the writers of the film ripped off the LOTR films or Tolkien stole some ideas from Lewis, whichever it may have been LOTR is by far the greater tale.
The Chronicles of Narnia takes place during WWII, a group of four children are sent to live with a Professor away from the effects of the war on London. There the children discover a closet, or a wardrobe which is a door to a whole other world... Narnia. Narnia is no happy place though; it is ruled by the white witch and the land has been frozen in winter for 100 years, with no Christmas by the way (whatever the significance of that is!). When the children set foot in Narnia they are unaware of the effects and the prophecy that is set in motion. It is said that two sons of Adam and two daughters of Eve will defeat the evil witch and bring back freedom to a once pleasant land. The only problem is they don't believe in this tale, and only agree to go along with it to rescue their misguided brother who has been captured by the white witch.
Visually The Chronicles of Narnia is pretty spectacular, but as I have said on multiple occasions CGI doesn't make a great film. Narnia is mildly entertaining for the first 45 minutes, then everything begins to go quickly downhill. Ironically I thought the kids (the main characters) ruined the film, their acting was awful, and the characters they protrayed seemed to be mentally challenged fools. Edmund sells everyone out for dessert and the ramblings of a witch who says she will make him king, all after being told the witch was evil and wanted to capture all of the humans. Then Peter "The Magnificent", more like Peter "The Dazed", would go around pointing his sword at people acting like he was tough but never actually used it!
The girls were even worse, they watched as their friends get killed and then cry about it, never once attempting to help them. Not to mention they were all given weapons by Santa...yes Santa figure that one out, and they hardly ever used them! In fact the oldest girl carries around arrows through half the film and only shoots one! On top of all this the talking animals was the final nail in the coffin for me, and the sacrifice scene with the torture of the Lion and the two stupid girls in the bushes watching the whole thing really shocked me, because we go from a blatant kids film to something that in my opinion would freak little kids out. Then it's all ended with a mediocre battle straight out of The Lord of the Rings, except with animals.
Overall I was pretty disappointed, a highly hyped up film which practically blew up the box office and it was like watching a bad Disney remake of The Lord of the Rings. Nothing was new or unique, the acting was horrible and I could not stop laughing because these kids were supposed to be the heroes and it was like watching a group of Special Ed kids role playing in the park. Kids will love the film because it's aimed at them, and they won't pay attention to acting or the story since it's nothing but a visual adventure for them. But don't be surprised if the younger ones get disturbed during some scenes, I thought the writers went a little overboard keeping the target audience in mind and the fact that this is a Disney film. Those of you with a little more maturity I suggest sticking to The Lord of the Rings, there's no annoying kids and talking beavers in that one, and at least that's a series you can sit through without wanting to brutally wound yourself.
4/10
"their acting was awful, and the characters they protrayed seemed to be mentally challenged fools"
ReplyDeleteI would say this was a much too strong remark from you :) You must have in mind that this book was written in some different times, when kids were still naive little angels who weren't exposed to wars, crime, politics every day over TV screens. That's why these kids behave just like in most old fairy tales. I like that, I don't like seeing American aggressive ideas of how everyone has to be a violent fighter or a calculating cynic in each movie.
That being said, I do agree with you that this movie didn't have much quality beside the beautiful visuals. But I still think it's a very successful movie since millions of children around the world enjoy this adventure on DVD's. After all this movie was aimed for younger and very small kids.
I'm not saying they have to be "a violent fighter or a calculating cynic". I'm simply stating the characters annoyed me. Edmund is a total traitor, for what... sugar! He sells out his family and joins the white witch who is completely honest with him and he still doesn't care. The rest of the kids I was more annoyed by them acting like they were tough stuff and then never following through when other people lives depended on it. If they don't want to be fighters that's fine with me, but they shouldn't go around acting like they are and then wimping out when they are needed to be.
ReplyDeleteThey were simply annoying in general, what I pointed out was only an example of what I didn't like. The fact that the film is about an hour too long didn't help either. It was almost like traveling on a long trip with four whiny kids in the back seat, not my type of entertainment.
But you do know the whole point of this story is that they are supposed to be the "saviors" of this land. So don't start blaming Americans for wanting everything to be violent, CS Lewis was Irish, he's the one that wrote this book. And if you read all of my review you'd see I felt this film was too violent for children, especially for the target audience which we agree is younger and very small kids.
Maybe the aim of the book was to show its young readers the effects and responsibilities of such behavior. He trusted the witch and betrayed his siblings and gets punished for it and so on and so on...
ReplyDeleteI did see the points where you mentioned those inappropriate scenes and I agree with you on that, the film is weird, but in my previous comments I was talking just about the children in the film not other aspects.
After all, you know I would rather see movies for kids about fairies, animals, love and learning, positive thoughts etc, instead of these warrior movies which are served to them these days.