Chronicles of Narnia Discussion - Page 3

Yeah, caught a midnight showing...the CG was very uneven, the beavers were well done and Aslan looked good, but the wolves were about as bad as in "Day After Tomorrow."

Anyone else get the vibe that Mr. Tumnus wanted to screw Lucy? Those looks they exchanged...ewww.

Time for me to let this out of my system.


1.) It is indeed an amazing movie. Don't be fooled by the PC crowd.

2.) The kids CARRIED the film on their shoulders. Not Oscar-worthy, but they were excellent performances.

3.) Yeah, Tilda Swinton kicked ass.

My nitpicks would be that the tone is surprisingly visceral, C.S. Lewis himself would have been shocked. And yes, the CGI was pretty uneven, but it was never distracting.

This definately made my night.

what is amazing about it besides the special effects? how are the kids 'excellent performers'? are you kidding me? if you want to give it to lucy and edmund, ok, i disagree, but ill give it to you. but the older two? jesus, the trees gave more powerful performances.

I enjoyed it. I was sort of anxious waiting for all them to get to Narnia already, but once they did, sure it's not LOTR but it's a fun ride. Some of the background CGI was spotty in places but all the lead characters were solid, especially the beavers, Aslan, and the fauns and centaurs. And that final battle, while a far cry from what's in the book, was pretty spectacular and imaginatively constructed. Yes the two younger kids are the stronger presences, but I don't think there are any performances that sink the film.

I saw it with my significant other who has been a fan of the books since she was five and she devoured the whole thing.

Peter and Susan did fine, and if that makes me almost nuts, fine as well.

Edit: Now I know why that dwarf was familier, he was Elijah Wood's stunt double!

Oh, and regarding the Santa Claus appearance, I was leery of how this would play on film, but they pulled it off perfectly -- he's never referred to by name, and his design avoids anything remotely traditional (to American audiences, at least). Beyond the white beard and the reindeer-powered sleigh, he's just a jolly old guy bearing gifts, and the scene is absolutely charming.

Way better than I expected, CGI was way better than the trailer led you to bielieve, although I must admit I still prefer the BBC animatronic lion

Much more violent then I thought it would be, the Gregson -Williams score kept making me think of Black Hawk Down though, but I must say I give Disney props for going with Zimmer or Williams

Peter looked and acted like a younger clone of Heath Ledger

Susan was alright, but then again thats the books fault

Edmund was good

but Georgie Henley as Lucy carried the whole bloody movie

Tilda Swinton was as previously mentioned pitch perfect

the only thing I really disliked was the animation on the wolf's mouth which was completly jarring

considering this was directed by the guy who made shrek, i was quite amazed at the camera work

3.65 out of 4

I had a similiar reaction to the first time seeing this as I did from the first time I saw LOTR. Being so familiar with the books, seeing the scenes in my mind played out was simply jarring and there's no way I can make a decision on whether it's good or not. It was certainly exciting, sometimes a little cheesy with its earnestness, but the final half-hour was breath-taking. But I need to see it again to get a solid opinion.

Didn't Devin say he was going to post a review soon?

Very well done. The only patently "fakey" effects shot were the two girls riding on Aslan, otherwise most of the CG was spot on.

Tilda Swinton could not have been more perfectly cast. She owned the movie and gave it a real sense of menace.

Was I the only person who thought the lead wolf was voiced by Michael Madsen? I swear it sounded just like him. Not according to the credits, though.

I found Narnia to be unexpectadly awesome. Of all the nit picks I have with it though, it's that they left out the scene in the book where the witch comes upon some animals having Chirstmas dinner and turns them all to stone. It was one of my favorite parts as a kid, and I was suprised it didn't make it into the movie. Luckily Tilda Swinton still manages to make the witch menacing.

I'm pretty sure the group of animals they stumble upon with the beavers was meant to be a nod to that scene.

Disney reference at stone table place?

When the beavers are showing the children the huge valley of the stone table, did anybody see the Pride Rock resemblence..?

I half-expected a red-assed baboon to come out of a corner and hit Peter in the face with his walking stick...

Box Office Mojo has the Friday take at $23.9 million.

I'm the biggest secular humanist liberal there is and I really enjoyed the hell out of this film. There were no big evangelical moments in the movie that I could recognize.

The last battle was badass as hell. Very LOTR in the speed and violent feel of it. Excellent stuff.

I agree with those who say that the older kids didn't really hold up their end, especially Susan, who brought nothing to the role. The kids who played Edmund and Lucy were excellent. CGI was a bit spotty, but nothing that really took you out of the film.

I don't think C.S. Lewis would go that far.

I really dug this film......it's no lord of the rings but it was never meant to be....I know it's supposed to be a "family-friendly" film, but i really wanted some more character development in it, it just seemed like a whole chunk of it was missing or something, I really wanted to learn more about some of the supporting characters.....i'm just nitpicking......hopefully in the sequels to come they will flesh out some of the other characters and make it longer so it feels a little more "epic".....Other than that excellent battle scene at the end there and I really don't see why most people say the CGI was shoddy, it looked great to me, but then again i was really engrossed in the movie.....

So. Fucking. Bad.

Well that was enlightening.

I. So. Agree.

And. Don't. Understand. What. All. The. Fuss. Is. About.

Different strokes for different folks, I suppose. (shrugs)

A $67 million opening weekend, the second-highest December opening of all time.

Well, I could waste a lot of time writing about how fake and cheap most of the special effects looked, or the fact that nothing really happens until the last ten minutes of the film, or the way that the kids were fairly bad actors, or the way the big battle felt like a video game rather than a moment of genuine danger, or the way Adamson flubs the emotional beats and character development to the point where I can't imagine any non-Christian adult getting upset over Aslan's death, to Swinton's surprisingly bad performance, or the way that I'll forgive shitty CGI in something like Zathura but not a $200 million dollar tentpole flick, to the way that most of the supporting characters were so underdeveloped that their deaths meant nothing, to the simple fact that for a large portion of the film, I was bored and I wished I was somewhere else, but SO. FUCKING. BAD. seemed like less work.

It's so odd, because I could see how someone could make these charges against the film....and yet, I liked most of it. Meanwhile, I remembering making many of the same complaints against LOTR: FOTR.

Fantasty is such a tricky genre to get right, it seems. I thought there was some bad acting and some bad CGI, but not enough to drag down the story by a longshot. I thought it was rather refreshing, mostly.

....what movie were you watching?

Someone posts "Meh" and they get their head bitten off, so I thought we had sort of moved beyond mono-syllabic posing and decided to post actual opinions. My bad.

A shitty one.

Refreshing = Derivative.

Nah, not at all. To me, the film was like The Bourne Supremacy. The ultimate reckoning/doing away with the bad guys/climactic battle was nifty, but not even the point of the film. It was about family and relationships, and I mostly bought the performances of the kids and their characters' relationships. I hated the oldest sister, but really enjoyed seeing the other 3 coming into their own.

Instead of a wizard, orcs, trolls, and whatever else forming into a party to go on a quest for a magical item (yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaawwwwwwn), it was about children torn from a comfortable life learning to forge a new one, both collectively and individually in a strange land. And unlike LOTR, there was actually a compelling antagonist to make their journey worthwhile.

I don't really care that some of the CGI was spotty, nor do I care about the ultra-obvious Aslan/Christ allegory. Did the story work? Yes. Did the characters work? Yes. All I needed.

I rather enjoyed the film. It's been years since I had read the books or seen the BBC movie, so it was almost like being re-introduced to the characters all over again.

The strongest performances were Tilda Swinton as the White Witch and Georgie Henley as Lucy. Ray Winstone and Dawn French did a fabulous job as Mr. and Mrs. Beaver and I also thought James McAvoy did good work as Mr. Tumnus, as did Jim Broadbent as the Professor.

As for the digital effects, everything was fairly solid, except for the wolves. Aslan was done very well and I'm thinking that the FX artists put much more work into him into making him as believable as possible, since he's such a central character to the story.

I also liked that the film wasn't overly long. To me, the story never felt rushed and I absolutely loved Jim Broadbent's final line. It ended the film on a perfect note.

8.0 out of 10

I thought this was a wonderful movie. It's been decades since I really read the books, but the movie was true to my best recollection of the first book in the series.

I felt the actors turned in competent performances, the girl who played Lucy was spot-on, and the White Queen was wicked! I began to buy Peter more and more as the movie went, and Edmund was seriously changed by the end. I think Susan was, as others have said, the weakest, but you know, so is that character in the book.

The CGI was not Lord of the Rings level, no question, but I never felt sucked out of the movie by anything. Maybe if I watched it a few more times, I'd be more critical on that level, but all in all, it seemed to fit the tone of the book well.

The audience I watched it with applauded. The next showing was sold out and had a line wrapped around the theater waiting for seats!

And I loved the little scene sneaked in between the Prof. and Lucy in the midst of the credits. A quarter of the audience hurrying out the doors missed it.

Ready for more Narnia!

Boo! Bad Nick! Bad!

I understand some of your criticisms but am pretty shocked by this one. I was very, very impressed with Swinton's performance, and in a year with a fairly thin and weak slate of Best Actress nominees I think she is worthy of a nomination. While I wish there had been a little more emotional connection to some of the characters, I enjoyed the movie from start to finish, and found it a fun, pleasurable watch. This was 9/10 for me personally.

I thought Swinson was fine, and so was the centaur dude, but the rest...

That was 2 hours of my life I'll never get back.

But again, to each is own.

Deep. Roy.

I enjoyed it; mostly because of the nostalgic feeling I got remembering the old animated version I used to watch over and over again, and how it used to scare the crap out of me when I was a kid.

The effects were fine for a fantasy movie. There have been much worse certainly, and few better, particularly where the animal effects were involved. One thing to remember on that point is that anthropomorphosizing animals will always seem hokey... because they don't actually talk. I almost prefer movies who let animals speak through creative telepathy to those who make them move their damn mouths. I imagine this will be one of the main failing points of Jurassic Park 4.

I was very impressed by this movie when I saw it last night. I read the books when I was a kid and I was expecting to be disappointed by the movie because movies rarely match the book, but the director did a great job bringing it to the screen.

The only special effect that took me out of the story for a moment was the fake backgound when the children were standing on the natural arch.

I would recommend this movie. I applauded with the rest of the audience at the end of the movie and that is something I rarely do.

Actually, it's Kiran Shah.

What was the scene introduced in the credits? I left rather promptly.

Info appreciated.

It is night, Lucy asks the professor if she can go back to Narnia. No, says the professor, it won't do any good to go back by that route, but once a queen of Narnia, always a queen of Narnia. In fact, she may return someday.

And as they leave the shot, the wardrobe door creaks a tad bit open, revealing some bright light. And we hear Aslan's roar.

Edit: As much as I liked this scene, it does feel a tad sloppy to add it after the first bunch of credits, giving off a feel of anti-climatic editing.

Get a grip. I should get a Best Actress nomination before Swinton, and I have a cock. She was one haughty cackle away from becoming a 1940s Disney Wicked Stepmother.

Looking pissed and over-enunciating every other word isn't the same as giving a good performance. Just ask Michelle Rodriguez.

Michelle Rodriguez enunciates?

Also: you have a cock?

I took the nieces and nephews at the weekend. I think it drags in a couple of places and the effects are not to the standard I'd expect from such a big budget.

However, the kids loved every minute of it (I must have crashed into ten mini-Aslans leaving the theatre). I reckon they're better placed than a crotchety old nut to make assessments on movies such as this, and so I'll defer to their noisy judgement.

Well it damn well should have been Deep Roy...

Narnia, not an allegory. I read two blogs that this guy participates in and his group is pretty knowledgeable about Lewis. Just another take. Also I don't think that Lewis intended this to be a recruiting tool. It's more of a what if, along the lines of "If Narnia existed, how would Christ look in it?"

I could see it....

I saw it again yesterday to get a solid opinion and have decided that I am very pleased with it. The two younger children, especially G.H., were great. The other two were servicable. The actor who played Peter had trouble with quiet "being there" acting, but when he had to explode into some sort of rage or other heightened emotional state he did very well. There was nothing about the actress who played Susan that was really good or really bad, just a kind of blandness that was inoffensive enought to not detract from the rest of the film.

I really enjoyed the structure and how they kept close to the book. They could have just shoved all four kids in at once and had at it, but they did the smart thing with smaller visits and "is it real or not" moments before the true adventure began. I especially loved the cross-cutting in the last 20 minutes between the girls with Aslan and the battle. Well handled cuts. Definitely had an LOTR feel to it, but it worked.

Yes, I'm very happy with this.

I agree. I dug the flick on many levels. On one hand the children were all varying degrees of good, though the two older kids really didn't have much to do. Tilda Swinton rocked as the white witch, while I loved the facial expressions of Aslan.

The effects weren't bad, though noticibly cg in many many instances. However, the buildup of that battle scene, and the way it played out was certainly worth. I had a geek moment when they showed the Phoenix. Awesomeness pure and simple.

Yeah, the whole "It's a Christian allegory! Run!" thing has been blown out of proportion. Lewis just sat down to write a kid's book based on some images he had in his head, like a Faun under a lamppost in wintertime, and the Christian stuff just popped in because that was his special concern. There's actually a lot of pro-Pagan allegory in the Narnia books too, which everyone seems to ignore. Lewis's worldview was wide enough to encompass both.

The movie was pretty good. I have to say, I'm really pretty deeply attached to the books from my childhood, so any movie adaptation is going to fall short. Knowing and accepting this, I was somewhat impressed that some stuff I was worried about from the trailer didn't come true. The CGI was obvious, but still pretty good, especially on Aslan. Actually, it was a good choice to have most of the creatures be all-CGI all the time, because you stop noticing. If they had gone back and forth between puppets or real animals, it would have been distracting.

There were a lot of little problems, though, mostly stemming from its treating the material the same way the Harry Potter movies did. And a couple of major problems, like the awful music. Gah.