Chronicles of Narnia

Last night we went to see the Chronicles of Narnia. I'm not much of a movie reviewer, and I remember very little from the book, though I only read it a few years ago. Given that, I can only talk about the movie from the movie perspective since I have no idea how it compared to the book.

The filming was sometimes fantastic and sometimes pathetic. There were a few times when the movie had a "Sounds of Music" quality. I don't mean that in a positive way. What I mean is that there would be scenes of the kids out in the beautiful surroundings, followed by a closeup that looked totally canned. They were obviously moved into a studio with an ugly backdrop behind them. Those moments were really bad because I didn't pay attention to what was being said because all I could think was, "That was acceptable in movies forty years ago, but that's terrible by today's standards!" At other times it was simply outstanding cinematography that captured the imagination.

The movie itself did a great job of capturing the allegory of Christ's death and resurrection. That actually came across as the clear point of the movie.

Overall, we really enjoyed it and recommend it. A bit much for children, but junior highers could handle it without a problem.