Mom's Narnia Movie Review

Could be spoilers --

Tim and I agreed to write and post our reviews before we talked to each other much about it, and before we read any other reviews.

I thought the movie was great! Georgie Hensley is perfect as Lucy. There were a few changes, but nothing enough to change the gist of the story. I did miss one of my favorite quotes, but it turned up later in the movie.

My minor criticisms: Some dialog between the children was missing. My own fault for knowing the book too well, I guess! Susan was more . . . Susan-ish? They really seemed to want to emphasize her practical side. I guess they're thinking ahead. If you only read the books, you'd be surprised at Susan later, but the movie seems to be setting things up for later. In general, the children seemed to squabble more and have some real issues that I hadn't seen in any other productions or read in the book. I assume that was an attempt to modernize them and make them more believable to modern movie-goers. Is it really so hard to believe that siblings can have warm feelings for each other and not have underlying hostilities towards each other? I thought it was a good idea to expand the antagonism between Peter and Edmund, it makes it more believable that Edmund would have been resentful enough to feel okay about going to the Witch. But it seemed that that was more the norm for the Pevensie sibling relationships.

The major thing I noticed was that Aslan wasn't 'fleshed out' enough for me to feel any connection with him, or to feel the same sense of desolate hopelessness when he died that I'd felt in other productions. Maybe it was just me having an off night? The battle and the kings and queens and the prophecy seemed to be more of a focus than Aslan himself. Maybe that's just because they showed more of the battle, and I'm used to it being de-emphasized or pretty much left out altogether in an attempt to put the focus on Aslan?

On the plus side, seeing Narnia come to life, and the creatures and the battle so realistic was unbelievable. Making everything seem so real overrided any minor changes. Still, I don't think that seeing the movie will replace reading the book. More than ever, it makes me want to read LOTR to see what I missed from seeing the movies. ;)