I can't be too sure but I seem to recall reading The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe way back when I was in primary school. I say 'can't be to sure' because I can remember the title, and quite a bit about a magical wardrobe being a doorway to another world, but other than that, nothing.
For those in my boat The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe tells the story of a group of 4 children who are sent to live at the house of a strange professor while their parents fight in the second world war. While playing in this house the children discover a wardrobe that transports them to the magical world of Narnia, a world of fantasy creatures that has been plagued by an unending winter for the last 100 years. The inhabitants of this world have been waiting this last hundred years for the prophesied 4 humans who will defeat the white witch and remove the curse over the land.
Now how much of this story was taken from the original text, and how much was cut I can't say. However what I can say is that as a film this is one of the biggest let downs in years. It's not that I don't like fantasy, or even childrens fantasy for that matter, it's just that, unlike other similar films of late, The Chronicles Of Narnia lacks any real heart. There's nothing in the film to really make you care about it's characters, or the situation they find themselves in.
I think that a large part of this may be down to the sheer amount of suspension of disbelief expected of the audience. In other fantasy stories (see Lord Of The Rings or Harry Potter) we were able to believe that the most inexperienced characters could achieve their goals through sheer luck, and a little help from their allies. Yet here we have a story that expects us to believe a child can enter a wardrobe, get a sword from Santa (no seriously) before becoming this great military strategist because a talking lion claimed to have faith in him. This is a fact that also proves to make the "big" battle scenes a lot less spectacular than they should have been.
Still if you already knew the story before reading this then you'll likely want me to shut up and tell you how it was made. Well, personally I would have to say that it was, erm, ok. The supporting cast certainly did well; Liam Neeson's voice was both authoritive and calm enough for the role of Aslan. Tilda Swinton's White Witch was intimidating enough, and Ray Winstone made a nice bit of comic relief as a talking beaver. Unfortunately the main cast, the children themselves, were terrible. It's a common misconception that all English people are good actors, and here that factor has been proven wrong by kids who are forcing a posh accent through, and then phoning in the delivery of their dialogue as if this material was somehow beneath them.
On a visual scale I would say that the film succeeded though. The CGI in this film was very good, particularly the work on Aslan the lion, and the effects used to merge man with beast (centaurs, fawns, and the like). The locations themselves had their moments to shine with vast sweeping shots along an ice palace, a breathtaking castle, a melting waterfall ect... It's just unfortunate that all this was done with CGI, and none with model work because the moments where characters walk around these areas are a lot less spectacular.
Ultimately I suppose this is not even close to the worst film ever made, but still it's not worth the money spent on it, and doesn't deserve the praise I suspect it will receive. It's a shame really because if more time had been spent developing the character transformations, and less time on a fairly meaningless Christian allegory; oh and had better actors been cast, then the film could have been another superb fantasy. Instead it's just another run of the mill effects blockbuster with little to no actual heart.
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