Review

Review Date: 11-December-05
Spoiler Rating: Low
Juju Judgment: Juicy

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005)

At the risk of sounding like a total lunatic, I'm going to tell you a secret. When I get dressed in the morning I always put on socks followed by shoes, never one sock and one shoe, then the other sock and other shoe. I do this because I might get sucked into another universe during the process and wouldn't want to find myself in a cold or blistering climate with nothing on one foot. I believe this because I was introduced to C.S. Lewis' The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe at an early and impressionable age.

The new movie version of Lewis' classic is a potent reminder of how much it's geared towards children and how much of its impact derives from their imagination. Directed and co-written by Andrew Adamson of "Shrek" fame, the first installment in "The Chronicles of Narnia" is a solid adaptation of a fantasy that jumbles together peril, loss, maturity, and Father Christmas as stimulating facets of an elaborate make-believe. In the beginning, Edmund Pevensie (Skandar Keynes) and his three siblings are faced with a tough reality from which it's only natural they would want to escape. Trading war-torn London for a mysterious country manor, they seek to dispel their dread and boredom and succeed after the youngest, Lucy, uncovers a world in the back of a wardrobe.

The Pevensies rack up adventures in Narnia with the speed of impetuous youth, and fortunately the actors all shine: William Moseley combines dewy innocence and budding manhood as the eldest boy, Peter; Anna Popplewell makes a perfectly prim Susan; Keynes is gorgeously bright-eyed even when he's scowling (a common ailment for poor Edmund); and little Georgie Henley carries the picture as the pivotal, lovable Lucy. (Her meeting with the faun Mr. Tumnus, played by James McAvoy, is particularly charming.) Their down-to-earth portrayals are essential since most of the characters they meet are talking animals, with the notable exception of the White Witch (Tilda Swinton), who ensnares Edmund in her plan to enforce eternal winter throughout the land.

The many animals emphasize the juvenile heart of the story and, incidentally, why it's not as powerful on the big screen as it is on the page. Despite the achievements of computer-generated animation, no filmmaker can bring a talking beaver to life as well as the mind of a child. This simple fact explains the one disappointment I felt with the film, in its depiction of Narnia's true ruler, Aslan. The Lion of the books filled me with such profound awe that I actually got tears in my eyes when I first saw him in the movie's trailer. But the awe fades when a creature who should strike a deep chord of veneration and longing (independent of any religious beliefs) appears as something manufactured for mass consumption. Movie Aslan's weakness resides in his pixelized eyes and Liam Neeson's voice, which isn't deep enough; he needs more of the raw animal inaccessibility of the witch's wolves, who are rendered beautifully.

But a diminished Aslan is perhaps a fitting overseer for the Narnia of the cineplex, which can never be as huge and wonderful as the Narnia known to the kid who discovered it through Lewis' words. Adamson or his successor may yet spin a cinematic masterpiece from a later episode less reliant upon fancy (such as the more linear, character-driven fairy tale "The Silver Chair," in which Aslan appears only briefly). For its part, "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" gets the franchise off to a good start, although the magic it presents us is better generated on our own.

Copyright © 2005 The Jujube (M. I. Kim). All rights reserved.