The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

I was first exposed to CS Lewis' masterpiece when I was an eight year-old third grader, and our teacher chose "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" to the class — a chapter a day, every day after lunch. I was hooked. As an adult, I revisited the first of the seven book series, and then I read the rest of them. They were still utterly captivating. For me, a movie couldn't come soon enough. But as part and parcel of those hopes come some very high expectations. The books are classics, and movie makers had best not mess with perfection if they know what's good for them! Just as importantly, they need to rise to that level themselves if they don't want to risk alienating loyal fans by diminishing the wonder that is Narnia.

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe harks back to World War II London when Nazi air raids were a terrifying and all too frequent reality. Among those living in fear of the next bombing run over London is the Pevensie family. After yet another midnight alert, their mother packs the four Pevensie children off to the country for their safety. The kids aren't thrilled — their father is already off fighting in the war, and now they're going to have to live without their mother, too — but they do as they're told and board a train for the countryside.

The dour Mrs. MacReady (Elizabeth Hawthorne) picks the children up at a rural train station and brings them to the mansion where Professor Kirke (Jim Broadbent) resides. She tells the children in no uncertain terms that they must behave themselves, and they do try. But boredom sets in on a rainy day, and little Lucy Pevensie (Georgie Henley) suggests they play hide and seek in the big old house. The smug Edmund (Skandar Keynes) agrees only because there's nothing better to do. Older sister Susan (Anna Popplewell) goes along with the idea; so does the eldest, Peter (William Moseley), who promptly begins to count to 100 while the others run off.

As she hears Peter nearing the end of his count, Lucy still hasn't found a place to hide. Edmund bullies her out of one potential hiding spot; as she hurries to find somewhere else, she ends up in a spare room containing a large and intricately carved wooden wardrobe. Lucy quickly opens the door and jumps inside. Fearing she'll be seen too easily at the front of the cabinet, she pushes her way through some fur coats only to find she's soon brushing aside fir branches!

Just that quickly and easily, Lucy finds herself in a winter wonderland populated solely by snow-covered trees and a burning gas lamppost. As she looks around in awe, she's surprised by the sudden appearance of a faun who is at least as startled to see her. The two recover themselves, however, and promptly begin the process of becoming friends. Mr. Tumnus (James MacAvoy) invites Lucy to tea, and she's pleased to accept. It's then that she learns Narnia has been stuck in winter for upwards of a hundred years, and that she's in grave danger from the Queen who wants to keep Narnia frozen forever.

Once she returns to the Professor's mansion, Lucy tries to tell Peter, Susan, and Edmund about her adventure. Of course, no one believes her. Lucy is frustrated beyond bearing, and sneaks out of bed one night to return to the wardrobe. Only this time, Edmund follows her and he, too, travels to Narnia. But his experience is a bit different when, instead of meeting a friendly faun, he meets the Queen herself (Tilda Swinton). The Queen lulls Edmund's fears and sweetly invites him to return along with his entire family. But when he finally does, all of the children learn that the Queen is really the White Witch and discover she's determined to see to it that the sons of Adam and the daughters of Eve are killed!

Peter, being the most sensible, immediately determimes that they must leave Narnia. Some of the woodland creatures who long for a return to the rule of the benevolent Aslan (voiced by Liam Neeson), beg him to reconsider. But Peter is adamant, and Susan is on his side. It's then that the children discover that, while they argued, Edmund has slipped away. Determined to rescue their brother, Peter finds himself drawn against his will into a classic struggle of good against evil where the price of failure is his life — and the life of the land he's coming to love.

The children who star in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe are almost all relatively new to their craft (Anna Popplewell is the exception), yet all of them are very good. Particularly impressive is the young Georgie Henley who is making her debut in this film. Tilda Swinton is distant and cold as need be, but she also brings a heated passion to her anger and her ambition that suits the White Witch character perfectly. James MacAvoy is a delightful Mr. Tumnus.

Supporting cast members are also good, including the voices of Liam Neeson, Ray Winstone (Mr. Beaver), Dawn French (Mrs. Beaver), and the Fox (Rupert Everett). But those voices couldn't be what they are if there wasn't a body onscreen to speak with the voices. Several special effects houses worked together to ensure those bodies were there and they were as realistic as possible (among them was New Zealand's WETA Workshop that so impressed the world with its extensive work on the Lord of the Rings series). Combining make-up and prosthetics with animatronics and CGI, the goal of realism was not only met in the end, but significantly exceeded.

Look into the eyes of Aslan the lion and you'd swear he was a real lion (the "eye problem," long a bane of computer animators, has apparently been thoroughly solved). His fur moves in the wind; when he walks, his heavily muscled haunches ripple under his skin. Have you ever imagined what a centaur might look like? They're as big and as real as life onscreen in this movie. Fauns? Talking beavers? Ditto. The gryphons (part eagle, part lion) are masterpieces; the CGI wolves are so well done that there are scenes filmed alongside real wolves and (unless one talks, of course) you can't tell which is which. These creatures are so entirely real that scenes involving some of these animals being hurt made me ache for them; Aslan's pivotal scenes had me in tears.

Director Andrew Adamson (check the irony of that last name, Narnia fans!) did a fine job with piecing together the live and computer generated action, and he certainly knew how to film some truly epic scenes. With a story like CS Lewis wrote, a director who cared enough to lavish the production with details, and a production team — ranging from top notch cinematographers to the best special effects houses in the world — that could keep up with both men, this (hopefully) first of the Chronicles of Narnia films (all seven books were optioned) is at least as good as you've heard it is. If you want to draw religious parallels to the story, you're welcome to do so. But this tale of love and betrayal, and courage and redemption loses nothing in the telling if you simply see it for what it is: a really, really good story that we're lucky has been made into a really good movie.

POLITICAL NOTES: The denizens of Narnia are monitored much of the time thanks to hidden eyes in the forest. They're encouraged to spy on each other and, if they don't, can face severe penalties for knowing something they don't report. Criticism of the Queen is frowned on at best. No wonder an underground group of revolutionaries is planning to take the country back!

As Mr. Tumnus looked over his shoulder and shuddered that the trees themselves might be watching him, I thought of security cameras on every light post in some cities. As the Queen punished "people" for failing to give her information, I considered the various authorities who have encouraged us to report anybody behaving in any unusual way, and recalled drug legislation that would see us actively punished if it was discovered we knew about a drug crime and failed to call it in. And then there are those in the Bush administration who have likened criticism of the War on Terror to actually aiding and abetting the terrorists. It's apparently wintertime for freedom in America these days, too...

FAMILY SUITABILITY: The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is rated PG for "battle sequences and frightening moments." Parents should be warned that the battle sequences are intense; frightening moments include not only the fight itself, but the punishments meted out by the Queen, sometimes to creatures we care a great deal about. I'd suggest you keep the littlest ones (those under the age of six or so) away from the theatre for this one. I'd encourage virtually everybody else, though, to get a ticket as soon as possible to get a look at this truly remarkable film.

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