The Chronicals of Narnia is an instant classic and easily the best movie of 2005. This movie brings to life the very essence of childhood imagination and magic. When watching the film, I was amazed how Disney and Walden Media was able to recreate the book exactly how I imagined. From the very begining to the title sequence to the end credits, this film was pure magic.
The score, produced by Harry Gregson-Williams, captivated the fantasy nature of the movie. The music was beautifully orchestrated and came to a climax with the battle scene. The two main songs--Imogen Heap's Can't Take it In and Alanis Morissette's Wonderkind both were sung beautifully and implemented very well.
When watching Narnia, it was difficult to tell when CGI was used, exemplifiing just how excellent it came out. In the movie, CGI wolves interweaved with real wolves. The ultimate CGI feature of Narnia was Aslan. This towering creature was animated beautifully with such detail and smooth movements. All the makeup and costumes were pulled off fantastically, mixing realism and fantasy.
The acting in this movie was high-rate all around. The two shining stars in this part of the series was Georgie Henley's performance as Lucy and Tilda Swinton's performance as the White Witch. Georgie played a very sweet little girl who charmed the audience with her childlike imagination and innocence. Tilda Swinton on the other hand captivated the audience with her pure villain-like evilness and oscar-deserving performance.
The other children all performed well, especially considering that for most of them, this was their first major film. James McAvoy pulled off a very believable performance as the kind and gentle Mr. Tumnus and Jim Broadbent pulled off a spot-on peformance as the wise, yet childlike Professor Kirke. Although Aslan, as voiced by Liam Neeson, didn't have the deep voice I expected, the performance as the Jesus-like figure was pulled off very well.
Overall, I would recommend seeing this film in theaters while you still can and to buy the DVD when it comes out April of this year. The whole family will enjoy it, from the young in age to the young at heart.
Nice review.
I wouldnt call it the best movie of 2005, but definitely one of the best.
I also noticed many religious references made, albeit implicitly, which I found very interesting. The more interesting thing was that the religious references were not just Christian, but also Muslim. Specifically, the scene of the battle where birds had stones in their beaks and claws and pelted the enemy is almost exactly what happened to a pre-Islamic Arabic king when he was on his way to battle some Saudi Arabian army. Birds had one stone in each claw and another in their mouth and swooped down, threw the stones and flew away.
The scene with the lion being sacrificed reminded me of Abraham and Ishmael, a story Jews, Christians and Muslims all know of. When Ishmael was alive and good, his family rejoiced, and so the same happened when the lion "awoke"; the kids rejoiced.
Anyway, I found the movie entertaining as well as a good learning experience.
Thanks for the review!
Yes, there were many religious references found throughout the movie. I felt they were strong enough to appeal to the religious, but light enough so that it wouldn't ruin the movie for the non-religious. Aslan is meant to be an alegory for Jesus. The sacraficing on the rock was very much like Jesus' crucifixion (with the shaving of the fur and the whole I-came-back-because-I-was-killed-on-a-sinner's-stone concept).
The kids have been begging for this so when it came out Tuesday we went and bought it. The movie itself is fantastic and my oldest and I enjoyed it very much, the only problem we had was that just about half the time the music was so loud that you couldnt hear what was being said. There were a couple of key statements that were missed because of this, my 6 year old got up and went to play because she couldnt hear what was being said. In spite of this it was still a wonderful movie and more than makes up for that little sound annoyance. Come to think of it, this is the third newer movie we have watched on DVD in the past month or so, that the music has been louder than the actors.....hmmmmm