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

Year: 2005 Rating: PG Overall Evaluation: 10 Significance Suppositions Story Style 10.0 / 10 10.0 / 10 10.0 / 10 10.0 / 10 Click HERE for evaluation criteria.

Style

Rated PG for battle sequences and frightening moments, this movie may not be for young kids or those easily frightened. But the frightening parts should be frightening (especially Aslan), and it was good to see the heroes actually destroying evil and not just magically whisking it away.

Story

If you haven't yet read the books then you ought to, even if you're an adult. These are "children's" stories but not in the modern sense. They don't pander to idiocy or politically correct "let's all be the same and celebrate our mediocrity," or, "let's show adults how stupid and boring they really are compared to us brilliant kids" garbage. Rather, the story is about four siblings who travel to another world called Narnia via a magical wardrobe. There they discover that a witch has caused Narnia to fall into despair. The witch manages to . . .

[SPOILER WARNING!]

. . . kidnap their brother, and although he is a traitor they remain in narnia to fight to get him back. In the meantime Aslan, the great lion, has returned to Narnia to set things right. The witch, however, has a claim on the brother - for all traitors must die by her hand. She agrees to allow Aslan to be killed in the brother's place, and in a stirring and horrible scene the witch disgraces Aslan and then kills him. As the sun rises the next day, however, Aslan returns to life (because death had no claim on him) and, with his armies, the children, and the good creatures of Narnia, proceeds to destroy the witch and her armies for good.

Relative to the book . . .

OK, I am sure no one is surprised to see a score of 10 for this movie. The producers would have had to mess it up pretty badly to score less. In all they did a very faithful (to the spirit if not to the last detail) reproduction of C. S. Lewis's classic tale. But just so this review is not all flowers and sunshine I will make mention of a few things that could have been better . . .

[SPOILER WARNING!]

First, while the special effects were well done, I was slightly disappointed by Aslan's voice. They got Liam Neeson to act as Aslan, and while he did a good job the sound techs should have pumped up the bass and reverb. In the book, when Aslan speaks people quake in their boots. When he roars they freeze in terror. I've been about 100 feet from a roaring lion once, and I can tell you that it is utterly terrifying. I was really hoping for a huge soundtrack for Aslan and they just didn't quite get it. Maybe it was the theater - when I get the DVD and put it through a good sound system I may remove this part of the review.

Second, two of the best parts of the book were obscured, though thankfully they were not simply left out. The first is when the children tell uncle Andrew about Lucy's "crazy story" and he believes her. This is classic Lewis, it is his famous "trilemma" being used for Lucy instead of Jesus Christ. It is sort of mumbled through in the scene which was not a real big deal, but I would have liked to have seen it presented more clearly. Next, in the book when the children are in Beaver's dam he tells Lucy about Aslan, and she asks him if Aslan is safe. And in one of the most perfect descriptions of God in all literature Beaver replies, "Safe? Of course he isn't safe! . . . But he's good." In the film, the line appears at the end and is changed to a statement by Lucy which sort of drained some of its power if not its truth. Perhaps they thought it would be more climactic to end with this line, but I thought it was weakened.

OK, that's it, the rest was perfect. :)

Suppositions

The story is a fairly obvious Christian worldview disguised under a mythic tale. This confuses some people who confuse how the story is told with what the story is telling. Lewis was a mythologist, and as such he sought to redeem pagan myths by using them as the vehicles for telling the Christian story (much like the Apostle Paul who quoted pagan poets and philosophers in Scripture under the guidance of the Holy Spirit). The same people who attack Lewis for using myth in his stories should, if they were consistant, conclude that Paul was sneaking pagan philosophy into the Bible by disguising it as inspired truth! However, Narnia is the creation of Lewis and as such he makes the rules. Narnia is a world of mythology - virtually every fairy tale or mythic creature ever imagined is real there (and is possibly where the pagans got their mistaken ideas???). Although it is not made perfectly clear in the film version, Narnia is another world - a separate creation from ours, where what we would call "magic" is simply part of the natural order (the wardrobe is actually from Narnia too, although this is known from a previous story). Thus, the magic is used as a vehicle to tell a bigger story, not to promote its use in the real world. It also supposes a very realistic portrait of Christ in the character of Aslan. Some have complained that as a Christ-figure Aslan should not have taken part in the killing. I wonder if these people have read Revelation. I was glad to see that they did not downplay the destruction of evil that will take place when the risen Christ returns.

Significance

The film, as with the book, is clearly a mythic version of Christ's story. Although other religions might be able to see some of their beliefs (the true ones anyway) in the film, there is no doubt that this story reflects the sacrificial love of Christ as well as His ultimate victory over true evil (not just some relativistic mush like Harry Potter), and the promotion of valor, strength, forgiveness, and selfishness. Pretty tough to beat.