Sazar
Rest In Peace
- Joined
- 12 Apr 2002
- Messages
- 14,905
I remember when I was 10, I was introduced to a boxed collection on the shelf of my friends dad, then a broadcaster for FEBA, called the Chronicles of Narnia.
This was before I knew what star wars was (grew up on islands remember lol), before I had heard of the wonders of Tolkien's world, before I knew what turkish delight was and before I had really been introduced to the world of epics.
I was an avid reader back then and had just been introduced to the world of greek mythology but the collection that was Narnia really introduced me to something completely different.
And so begins my mini-review.
---
I actually watched the movie last night. To start of with, the movie stays surprisingly true to the book in many ways for the duration. This is both a good thing and, in a few instances, a drag. It is a VERY hard job to literally commute a book into a movie without stilting it somewhat. This is precisely why I loved the LOTR movies even though they took massive liberties with the source material.
Narnia fortunately does not fall into the trap of doing too much (a la the disappointing SW-ep. III). Instead Adamson has coaxed above average performances from the 4 children who play the key characters, especially the role of Lucy, the youngest of the kids.
There are also some fabulous "performances" by the cgi characters who actually LOOK realistic. This really helps when we are introduced to Aslan, the Lion in the story. There are some cheapish cgi effects which do not detract from the experience, but the way characters like Aslan are rendered makes up for any shortcomings in other areas.
The voice-acting is also very good. Well above average and Neeson does a great job with Aslan. To portray someone strong, powerful, proud AND nurturing/innocent at the same time is not an easy job when you are working with real people. He managed to do that with just his voice and a cgi character.
The movie has some disjointed bits in the middle but the acting and the characters and the vista's the character find themselves in are very entertaining. There was an overabundance of the character Ginarrbrik, which I completely fail to understand. Sure he was interesting in the first instance when introduced on screen but for crying out loud, no more jar-jar like characters please.
The score is perhaps the only part of the movie that is not majestic enough.
It is varied, it is engrossing, it is entertaining but it is not a majestic score like that of LOTR or Harry Potter. Still it is good enough to keep this movie going.
I don't want to ruin the movie for those who are not initiated into the world of C.S. Lewis so I am not going to go into specifics for characters or storyline but I will end by saying this is a very good movie and something that is recommended for the holidays.
I give the movie 4/5 OSNN stars. Very entertaining.
This was before I knew what star wars was (grew up on islands remember lol), before I had heard of the wonders of Tolkien's world, before I knew what turkish delight was and before I had really been introduced to the world of epics.
I was an avid reader back then and had just been introduced to the world of greek mythology but the collection that was Narnia really introduced me to something completely different.
And so begins my mini-review.
---
I actually watched the movie last night. To start of with, the movie stays surprisingly true to the book in many ways for the duration. This is both a good thing and, in a few instances, a drag. It is a VERY hard job to literally commute a book into a movie without stilting it somewhat. This is precisely why I loved the LOTR movies even though they took massive liberties with the source material.
Narnia fortunately does not fall into the trap of doing too much (a la the disappointing SW-ep. III). Instead Adamson has coaxed above average performances from the 4 children who play the key characters, especially the role of Lucy, the youngest of the kids.
There are also some fabulous "performances" by the cgi characters who actually LOOK realistic. This really helps when we are introduced to Aslan, the Lion in the story. There are some cheapish cgi effects which do not detract from the experience, but the way characters like Aslan are rendered makes up for any shortcomings in other areas.
The voice-acting is also very good. Well above average and Neeson does a great job with Aslan. To portray someone strong, powerful, proud AND nurturing/innocent at the same time is not an easy job when you are working with real people. He managed to do that with just his voice and a cgi character.
The movie has some disjointed bits in the middle but the acting and the characters and the vista's the character find themselves in are very entertaining. There was an overabundance of the character Ginarrbrik, which I completely fail to understand. Sure he was interesting in the first instance when introduced on screen but for crying out loud, no more jar-jar like characters please.
The score is perhaps the only part of the movie that is not majestic enough.
It is varied, it is engrossing, it is entertaining but it is not a majestic score like that of LOTR or Harry Potter. Still it is good enough to keep this movie going.
I don't want to ruin the movie for those who are not initiated into the world of C.S. Lewis so I am not going to go into specifics for characters or storyline but I will end by saying this is a very good movie and something that is recommended for the holidays.
I give the movie 4/5 OSNN stars. Very entertaining.