The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. Directed by Andrew Adamson. From the book by C.S. Lewis. Starring Georgie Henley, Skandar Keynes, William Mosely, Anna Popplewell. Tilda Swinton, James McAvoy, Jim Broadbent; voices by Liam Neeson, Ray Winstone, Dawn French & Rupert Everett. The white witch did have cool hair!
This is a fantastic film for children and my kids loved it and kept them amused for the whole 3 hours! (they are 7 and 10) I have to admit, I did have higher expectations of it; so don’t go to the cinema expecting it to be a film for adults who remember the book, that children will like as well. It’s more like the other way round. The other thing, is, we went to see it at the end of the Christmas holidays and I’d just had a Lord of the Rings dvd marathon, and the special effects were no where near as good as those films, so avoid them before you go as it might spoil it!
The thing that this film got totally right was the casting. The children were excellent (a vast improvement on the annoying Lucy in the televsion series!) There were no winces at all (like you get at the beginning of Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone) when the acting isn’t up to scratch. I hope this brings them many roles in the future.
The drama and action are intense, but not too scary for children. The scene with Aslan sacrificed is very emotional, so my advice if your kids don’t know the story, is tell them in advance what will happen; and then what happens afterwards, so hopefully they won’t be too upset.
The CGI of Aslan was just right for his character; as it was also for the beavers and other creatures.
I’d definitely recommend seeing it.
