The Chronicles of Narnia:
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
Year: 2005
Director: Andrew Adamson
Starring: Georgie Henley, Skandar Keynes, James McAvoy, William Moseley, Liam Neeson, Anna Popplewell & Tilda Swinton
Runtime: 143 mins
BBFC: PG
Published: 23/11/20
Director: Andrew Adamson
Starring: Georgie Henley, Skandar Keynes, James McAvoy, William Moseley, Liam Neeson, Anna Popplewell & Tilda Swinton
Runtime: 143 mins
BBFC: PG
Published: 23/11/20
When I ask you to think of great fantasy literature you may think of books like The Lord of the Rings, A Song of Fire and Ice, His Dark Materials, or even Harry Potter. But a series that often gets forgotten about, particularly amongst my generation and most certainly people younger than me is C.S. Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia. The reason for this general lack of recognition I don’t know I can pin down, but I can certainly say that where a decent amount of fantasy literature has had successful film adaptations in the last few decades, Narnia did not, or at least not to the same extent. Whilst there were three Narnia films made from the seven-book series, and they fared reasonably well at the box office, they were nowhere near the huge successes of its contemporaries like Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter.
I only ever watched the first film and almost completely forgot the sequels existed until I found two of the three films on Disney+ the other day. So, I put on my fluffy coat and went through the wardrobe once more to see whether Narnia ever had the potential to be a great films series, or if the reason it ended so swiftly was down to the quality of filmmaking.
It is the height of World War II and the Pevensie children, Peter (William Moseley), Susan (Anna Popplewell), Edmund (Skandar Keynes), and Lucy (Georgie Henley) are evacuated from their London home to keep them safe from the German bomber planes. They land in the care of Professor Digory Kirke (Jim Broadbent) and his strict housekeeper Mrs. Macready (Elizabeth Hawthorne). One rainy day the children explore the house playing a game of hide and seek when Lucy, the youngest sibling, discovers a great wardrobe. Attempting to hide in it, she climbs in and finds that it is not a wardrobe, but actually a portal to another world. There she finds a snowy forest landscape, and she is greeted by a talking faun named Mr. Tumnus (James McAvoy). Tumnus lures Lucy away from the wardrobe with the intention of kidnapping her for the Queen of Narnia. However, he comes to his senses and sends Lucy back home, where she realises that no time has passed despite being gone for several hours.
Eventually the rest of the Pevensie family come to see the truth in Lucy’s story as they all travel to Narnia, where upon meeting a family of beavers they learn that they are the true heirs to the Narnian throne and must join forces with Aslan the lion (Liam Neeson) to battle the Queen and end her icy reign.
I only ever watched the first film and almost completely forgot the sequels existed until I found two of the three films on Disney+ the other day. So, I put on my fluffy coat and went through the wardrobe once more to see whether Narnia ever had the potential to be a great films series, or if the reason it ended so swiftly was down to the quality of filmmaking.
It is the height of World War II and the Pevensie children, Peter (William Moseley), Susan (Anna Popplewell), Edmund (Skandar Keynes), and Lucy (Georgie Henley) are evacuated from their London home to keep them safe from the German bomber planes. They land in the care of Professor Digory Kirke (Jim Broadbent) and his strict housekeeper Mrs. Macready (Elizabeth Hawthorne). One rainy day the children explore the house playing a game of hide and seek when Lucy, the youngest sibling, discovers a great wardrobe. Attempting to hide in it, she climbs in and finds that it is not a wardrobe, but actually a portal to another world. There she finds a snowy forest landscape, and she is greeted by a talking faun named Mr. Tumnus (James McAvoy). Tumnus lures Lucy away from the wardrobe with the intention of kidnapping her for the Queen of Narnia. However, he comes to his senses and sends Lucy back home, where she realises that no time has passed despite being gone for several hours.
Eventually the rest of the Pevensie family come to see the truth in Lucy’s story as they all travel to Narnia, where upon meeting a family of beavers they learn that they are the true heirs to the Narnian throne and must join forces with Aslan the lion (Liam Neeson) to battle the Queen and end her icy reign.
Much like Tolkien did with Middle Earth, Lewis imbues Narnia with so much history and detail that the world is one of the most believable in all of fantasy fiction. Almost every character the Pevensie children come into contact with reveals more information about Narnia’s history and the types of inhabitants that call it home. As a result, its truly thrilling to meet new characters because we come to desire new information on this fantastic world more than the main plot of the film. Which is where the big issue comes in, the story of the Pevensie’s fighting the Queen is not all that interesting. In fact, come the second half of the film where battle preparations take centre stage and ultimately the war for Narnia itself, they are infinitely less engaging than the mystical first half. I feel that this is largely due to how this section of the film is structured and shot. In comparison to say Lord of the Rings where we often get significantly larger scale battles, or even slower paced exposition scenes that are intercut with battles, they blend with the worldbuilding and character development seamlessly. In Narnia though everything takes a backseat for the action in the second half and the film grinds to a halt because of it.
Part of the problem to this is that the performances provided by the Pevensie children are simply not strong enough to carry the weight of the film, particularly when all they are doing is hacking at things with swords or shooting them with arrows. Whilst the children are for the most part perfectly acceptable, they actually work best as individuals than as an ensemble. They have almost no chemistry together and I simply refuse to buy that they are supposed to be siblings.
Anna Popplewell is by far the best performer of the lot, but even when she is in a scene with any of the leads her performance is squandered by those around her. None of them are outright terrible performances, but they simply aren’t believable and it negatively affects the film as a whole.
The special effects are pretty good for their time and in many areas still hold up today, but again once the battle scenes roll around and you have a lot of CGI animals hitting each other with sticks and swords it begins to look a little rubbery like The Matrix sequels. The practical effects are great though with some fantastic set and costume design. It’s a shame that they couldn’t have relied more on this than CGI but then again this is a mid 2000’s family film I’m talking about so cramming things with as much shoddy CGI as possible was the trend back then.
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe is a generally enjoyable experience but because the world and history of Narnia is so much more interesting than the plight of the Pevensie’s and Narnia’s citizens during the events of the film. It ultimately means that whilst I certainly would love to revisit the world, I would want to leave the characters established in this film behind, which is perhaps why the two sequels that followed didn’t fare quite so well because they continued the story of the Pevensie children. But despite its flaws The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe is still an enjoyable family film that has plenty to appease both children and adults.
Part of the problem to this is that the performances provided by the Pevensie children are simply not strong enough to carry the weight of the film, particularly when all they are doing is hacking at things with swords or shooting them with arrows. Whilst the children are for the most part perfectly acceptable, they actually work best as individuals than as an ensemble. They have almost no chemistry together and I simply refuse to buy that they are supposed to be siblings.
Anna Popplewell is by far the best performer of the lot, but even when she is in a scene with any of the leads her performance is squandered by those around her. None of them are outright terrible performances, but they simply aren’t believable and it negatively affects the film as a whole.
The special effects are pretty good for their time and in many areas still hold up today, but again once the battle scenes roll around and you have a lot of CGI animals hitting each other with sticks and swords it begins to look a little rubbery like The Matrix sequels. The practical effects are great though with some fantastic set and costume design. It’s a shame that they couldn’t have relied more on this than CGI but then again this is a mid 2000’s family film I’m talking about so cramming things with as much shoddy CGI as possible was the trend back then.
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe is a generally enjoyable experience but because the world and history of Narnia is so much more interesting than the plight of the Pevensie’s and Narnia’s citizens during the events of the film. It ultimately means that whilst I certainly would love to revisit the world, I would want to leave the characters established in this film behind, which is perhaps why the two sequels that followed didn’t fare quite so well because they continued the story of the Pevensie children. But despite its flaws The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe is still an enjoyable family film that has plenty to appease both children and adults.