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"Narnia" on DVD

Posted by DWPC (A) on April 7, 2006 at 11:03:25

We got lucky with Netflix and got the Narnia DVD on its release day, Tuesday. I disliked the first half, liked the second half. Far too much screen time was allotted to the intro and the children just getting to Narnia; far too little spent explaining the conflict and Aslan's character (though that IS a different book).

While basically true to Lewis' book, the resurrection allegory seemed only grudgingly included. It was clumsily done, as if to be rushed through before anyone really noticed the parallels. The brutal "stone table" scene was, however, well and strongly done. Those objecting to the religious theme ought to just avoid the movie. It’s the whole reason Lewis wrote the story. There's isn't much graphic violence or blood but I was surprised at the un-Disneylike and discomforting portrayal of cold brutality in several scenes.

The use of animation and CGI were excellent; the reality of movie creatures is getting downright spooky. (Though I’m sure it looks better on a TV than the big screen.) Not that the CGI was invisible; it wasn’t; but it's matured to a point where the shadings, textures, and motion modeling were lifelike and completely in synch with the real action images. The animated wolves and the fox, though, didn’t come across as well as the others. The CGI guys added a lot of interesting action and stuff in the backgrounds of scenes too; try to spot it.

Except for the faun, the wonderfully imaged mythologic creatures of Narnia are there only for visual effect and mostly ignored in the story. Its too bad that little imagination and screen time was invested in how the richly mythic creatures might do battle. That was an opportunity missed.

The humans actors were disappointing. None of the children made any emotional impression whatsoever. Compared to, say, the child actors in "Finding Neverland", this bunch were duds. If the director wanted bland actors who wouldn't compete with the CGI creatures, he succeeded. Tilda Swinton was fine as the White Witch, until the battle scenes in which she looked pretty silly. Her costume design didn’t help. Actually, all the one-on-one combat scenes were pretty stiff and sterile…its hard to make a 14-year old look convincing with a broad sword.

Since LOTR has run its course, perhaps the future Narnia movies won’t suffer so much from direct comparison. But the directors and film writers for future episodes also need to better understand that these books aren't simply children's fantasies; their power is in the underlying themes. Ignoring the religious allegory removes the backbone of the story. Lewis material deserves better than to be just a platform for displaying fancy effects.

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