chronnarnia1

I’m not Harry Knowles, so I’m not going to give you my life story every time I review a movie. I will cut
to the chase and tell you though that as a boy I read both “The Chronicles of Narnia” and “The Lord
of the Rings,” and was under-whelmed by Narnia to be frank. Some would say they are not
comparable. I say they are. Both were written by British authors around the same time period,
authors who had similar life experiences in World War I. The authors were also good friends. Both
have mythological overtones and both attempt a narrative of epic, magical proportions. And now,
both are high budget, pre-planned series that have and will be a mainstay in theaters for years to
come.

The differences in both the books and the films is that one focuses on child heroes and the other
uses adult heroes. By default almost, the writing in “Narnia” is more whimsical, less subtle,
sophisticated and often quite hammy. On the flip side, “Lord of the Rings” is intricate, sophisticated
and weighted with a kind of suspense akin to great epic myths that “Narnia” simply doesn’t have. As
a kid, I gravitated to stories about adult heroes in adult situations and kid heroes in kid situations.
In “Narnia,” it was kid heroes in adult situations and I just couldn’t get into it.

What made it more difficult in both the book and the film is the sheer childishness of the set pieces
and the more-than-overt Judeo-Christian dogma being flung at me. As an aside, I find it very
interesting that the Christian groups talk trash about “Harry Potter” as being evil because of magic
and wizards while praising “Narnia,” a film about magical beasties, witches and the like. Interesting
double standard if you ask me.

The movie, like the book, is decidedly juvenile and also has an egregiously long title. The
production value of the film is quite high and impressive and Disney has pulled out all the stops to
create their biggest talking animal picture ever. I am sure kids will love it. Hence, I am grading it
fairly. But for all of its efforts, I don’t feel this is an “A” picture. The dialogue is at times redundant
with some of the worst expositional dialogue I have ever seen. Someone says “Aslan,” for example.
Someone replies, “Aslan. Who’s Aslan?” To which the next line is, “You don’t know who Aslan is?”
And then we get the “No. Who is Aslan?” There were many moments like this that had me pulling
my hair in frustration. I might still be there if they hadn’t broken the cycle. This movie often needs
to shut up and get to the point.

Beyond that, the kid leads in the film spend most of their time asking expositional questions like that,
smiling in delight at this talking animal or that positive resolution. I couldn’t count how many times
they started crying and don’t try to take notes on the number of group hugs there are in the film.
Too many to fathom.

For me, the film faltered when it counted. The “epic” battle at the end of the movie tried to be a
“Braveheart,” “Lord of the Rings” style engagement, but seemed a pale attempt to mimic the great
battles of cinema. With children leading the charge, and Edmund in a really bad helmet, I couldn’t
accept it. This is a kiddie version of “Lord of the Rings” meets Animal Planet. The best part of the
film was the first ten minutes when we are treated to an impressive Battle of Britain sequence. Kids
will love it. The audience I saw it with applauded. The production value is high, though the effects
are not as convincing as “Harry Potter” or “Lord of the Rings.” It felt by the numbers to me.