Not a Tame Lion

OK, so I finally saw Disney’s The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. I picked up the DVD at Best Buy yesterday. After all of the hype in the Christian sub-culture surrounding the “evangelism opportunities” of this movie, I’m kind of glad that I didn’t see it 5 months ago. Truth is there was no overtly Christian message to this movie, unless you knew it was there. If I didn’t know anything of the Bible, then I wouldn’t have thought twice about what I was watching. I would have likened it to Willow or Lord of the Rings. But I guess there’s an opportunity to share with someone afterwards what it was based on.

Well, anyway, the movie itself was beautiful. The scenery and cinematography were excellent. The CG was very well done. You can’t mention the computer graphics and not comment on Aslan. He looked amazing and that was reiterated on the bonus disc featurette on the making of the CG lion. 5+ million hairs. And it took 10 hours to render one frame. One frame! If you’ve ever dabbled even with Photoshop, then you know the kind of work and effort it took to bring him to life.

The story is excellent, of course knowing all of the Christian symbolism and parallels. The only qualm I have is in character development. I would have liked to have seen more direct and personal interaction between the children and Aslan prior to his sacrifice. It seemed that there was more time getting to know the beavers than Aslan. I think then the sacrifice would have carried even more emotional weight. Don’t get me wrong, I felt it, but I was thinking more of Christ than the lion. And not that that’s a bad thing, but within this story (alone), the relationship of the children with him needed to be brought out more.

The acting was pretty good. The girls acted very well, especially the little one, but I thought the boys were a little rough around the edges. Edmond seemed a little uncomfortable and Peter didn’t quite sell the King/Leader role for me.

Well, I shouldn’t complain too much. I’d much rather see Hollywood make these kind of movies than other junk that funnels out of Southern California.

But one last thing: is Santa Claus in the book!?! Ugh.

I give 4 out of 5 manes to The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe.