My review of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

Aslan is not a tame lion....

Here is a copy of my review from another forum that I posted as soon as I got home from seeing it Friday night:

Oh....my....gracious!

What an AWESOME movie. The book I have loved for years was brought to life. Aslan was realized in a way I've never seen before.

It's a cliche, yes, but I laughed, I cried (SOBBED), I LOVED it!

Go see it as soon as you can. And see it again and again. I plan to.

Here's hoping to stumble across a magic wardrobe one day....

Incidentally, if you go to this website: http://music.yahoo.com/ar-300564-videos--Steven-Curtis-Chapman You can watch "Remembering You"--a song by Steven Curtis Chapman from the Narnia album. It's very powerful.
 
I've seen Narnia... twice.

I saw it at the first showing of the day Saturday morning, and it was *packed*; seemed like every car in the parking lot was there for Narnia. Then I saw it again Saturday night with a group of Kansas City artists I'd only met on DeviantArt; that was fun.

Anyway, as to the movie.

I thought it was *brilliant*; real A+ stuff. I've not read that particular book in the series. I have only read The Magician's Nephew, because the version I have has it numbered at #1, so I thought I was supposed to read it first. I'm now #4 on the holds list to check out LWW from the library.

So, anyway, I came into the movie a "virgin" except for the information from Magician's Nephew that ended up being connected to this other story. So I didn't have any expectations besides what I saw in the trailers... and I wasn't disappointed.

Above all, I LOVE Aslan. He is the coolest "mentor" character I've seen in a movie lately, and I love the allegorical connections.

I loved being able to view this as simply a fantasy movie (so I could convince the non-believers that it's still a great movie, no matter what), but also being able to view it from the point of view of being a Christian with the knowledge of the New Testament. That just made it even better for me. The parallels to the Bible and the symbols and allegory... it all was so brilliant, but not so heavy-handed that it would alienate the non-Christian viewers.

Having read the other book, I liked having the knowledge of who the professor is and the history of the wardrobe, but nothing beyond that. It was neat to know the history, but not what was going to happen IN the movie.

Tumnus was awesome (and my friend Matt insists he's hot, LOL... of course, he's also insisting that just about every centaur and faun in Aslan's army was hot... hehehe). I loved how he was really a great guy deep inside, and how the innocence of friendship played out.

I'm now eager to buy the soundtrack, 'cause the music in the movie was AWESOME.

I could go on all day. But I can't, as I've got to lgo to sleep (after 2:30am here).

So, in closing, I just want to say I've given Narnia an A+, something that has been in short supply on my list this year concerning movies. I'm so very glad it did so well at the box-office this weekend. It deserves the success (partly 'cause I'm hoping for sequels).

Joy

PS: Hey, Jennie! I got to see Steven Curtis Chapman perform that song live at the Mercy Me/SCC Christmas concert here in Kansas City a week or so ago. They played the music video on the screens as Steven performed it, so that was SO cool.
 
It has been forever since I read this book, so I also went in almost a "virgin". I thought it was very well done. I think the emotion vanished too quickly after the Four Thrones sequence.
 
tina_als_girl said:
PS: Hey, Jennie! I got to see Steven Curtis Chapman perform that song live at the Mercy Me/SCC Christmas concert here in Kansas City a week or so ago. They played the music video on the screens as Steven performed it, so that was SO cool.
Click to expand...

Oh you lucky girl!!!!!! I've not seen them TOGETHER, seen MercyMe with MWS, and SCC twice (three times if you count the brief performance at CrossSeekers in '98 ).

And having seen the video, to hear him do that live......well, I can imagine it was like seeing "When Love Takes You In" at the Live Out Loud tour, and seeing Shaohannah in the music video and him explaining the story of their China adoptions just before and then performing it just him and the piano.....

That is such an awesome song, anyway, and I am SOOOOO getting that Narnia album!!!!!

btw....at Sam's.....I got all seven unabridged audiobooks for $45 and some change. I'm listening to Magician's Nephew now, read by KENNETH BRANAGH!!! :D
 
Last edited:
No....if my review made it to NarniaWeb, someone must've pasted it from elsewhere. Mine was actually originally on a Disney site. And I pretty much use McDuck universally. :)

But you've got my curiosity piqued now as to what you might've seen at NarniaWeb.....and whereabouts....
 
QLDamsel said:
Great, if Jennie feels this way, I don't have a chance in getting out of the theatre without blubbering like a fool.

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh boy.
Click to expand...

:heybaby Yeah, you'd think it was "just" The Stone Table that got me, but no.....there was more....
 
McDuck said:
That is such an awesome song, anyway, and I am SOOOOO getting that Narnia album!!!!!
Click to expand...

Yeah, my sister asked me what I wanted for Christmas, and I very excitedly let her know I wanted the score from Narnia.

btw....at Sam's.....I got all seven unabridged audiobooks for $45 and some change. I'm listening to Magician's Nephew now, read by KENNETH BRANAGH!!! :D
Click to expand...

OMG. When I have money, I'm *so* getting those... Listening to Kenneth Branagh read a book? The idea is just about as great as listening to Alan Rickman read a book (which I've done, and of course, I never managed to get through it 'cause my mind kept getting, er, off-track and I had to keep rewinding... LOL).

I'm re-reading Magician's Nephew at the moment. In fact, it was the first thing I did when I got home from seeing LWW was to pick up the book and start reading. It'll keep me busy 'til my name gets higher on the library holds list for LWW.

Joy
 
tina_als_girl said:
OMG. When I have money, I'm *so* getting those... Listening to Kenneth Branagh read a book? The idea is just about as great as listening to Alan Rickman read a book (which I've done, and of course, I never managed to get through it 'cause my mind kept getting, er, off-track and I had to keep rewinding... LOL).
Click to expand...

Just to further whet your appetite for it:

The Magician's Nephew, read by Kenneth Branagh
The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, read by Michael York
The Horse and His Boy, read by Alex Jennings
Prince Caspian, read by Lynne Redgrave
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, read by Derek Jacobi
The Silver Chair, read by Jeremy Northam
The Last Battle, read by Patrick Stewart
 
I havent seen the movie yet (Or Goblet Of Fire which I plan to see over Christmas weekend) but I picked up all 7 books in 1 volume for $15 at Barnes & Nobles...Once I finish Order of the Phoenix, I'll probably start Narnia... OT: While I am reading Potter 5, I keep visualizing Mrs. Olsen from Little House on the Prairie as the High Inquisitor
 
Remember to read The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe first, even though they now consider it book 2 (or is it 3 now?).
 
It is, but in my opinion, you'll appreciate The Magician's Nephew more if you read it last. Then again, I grew up reading LW&W first.
 
I got to see The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe this evening with my daughter and three of her friends. It has been a long time since I read this most excellent story by CS Lewis. It's also been quite some time since I had to write a report over CS Lewis, however, I must say this:

THIS MOVIE IS SOOOOOOOOOOO AWESOME!

I hope that they continue to make the Chronicles of Narnia. The stories are wonderful, the characters just blast out at you in every single way... and it touches your heart.

I couldn't believe it tonight when I got out of the theatre without a single shed tear. Now, I did tear up... but they didn't fall. As I watched it, I kept thinking about how they followed the story as well as they had. I know that it's not that THICK of a book - not like Lord Of The Rings or Twin Towers, but... it's on it's own a story that people should watch just for the satisfaction of saying that you got to see it. It definitely has some BIG TIME meaning in it... Christian or not....

1 out of 10 with one being the lowest and 10 the highest... this movie is a 5, 999! :)

It was mentioned that the emotion seemed to drop after the throning of the four, and yes, it was a bit, but they had to mesh it out to show how they grew...

I'm just glad that I got to see it. *G*
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom
Back