Narnia!

I'm pretty down on the movie-theater experience these days. I figure, why bother paying through the nose to see something I can enjoy just as easily in comfortable chairs in my own home, with decent food (that I didn't again pay through the nose for), and a remote control with which to pause the movie anytime I want? But occasionally a movie comes along that I think might be worth all that effort. The last one this year was Serenity, and the experience of walking out of the theater sobbing in hurt and disappointment nearly turned me off theater-going altogether.

I finally decided to make an exception for The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. The fact that it was filmed in New Zealand kept making me think it would be like the Lord of the Rings movies, which were, of course, awesome. But at the same time, I was incredibly nervous that they would get it wrong. So easy to do—to go for the wrong tone, create the world in an overly CGI manner because they could, miscast, etc. And I spent the first probably two-thirds of the movie waiting for them to screw it up.

In the first minute of the movie, I could tell I was going to like it. In the first 5 minutes, I could tell I was going to love it. And so I was doubly afraid that any minute the spell would be broken and there would be a wrong note to jar me out of that world.

Not one. Not once did anything make me say, "What were they thinking?" Occasionally I noticed an added scene, a dropped line, some missing dialogue, but within seconds of noticing the change I could see exactly why it was necessary.

The cinematography was spectacular. The care taken with the important props (the Witch's dagger, the wardrobe itself) impressed me several times. The CGI was damn near seamless—if I didn't know fauns don't exist and beavers don't talk, I would have believed they were real. I held my breath for the first appearance of Aslan, afraid that the casting of Liam Neeson as his voice would ruin the illusion—and even there, no disappointment. Neeson's voice was barely recognizable. It was Aslan speaking, and not a Hollywood actor.

Which leads me to the film's crowning achievements—casting and characterization. Of course, the most important parts, really. What I loved was that not only were the characters true to the books, they exceeded the books. Lewis's characters tend to be on the nursery side—while they are good book characters, it's hard to imagine meeting them in the real world. The makers of LWW managed the nearly impossible feat of maintaining faith with Lewis's characters while also making them into real people.

And the casting. The White Witch was glorious. Perfectly in harmony with the description of Jadis given in The Magician's Nephew, she was in no way a typical theatrical witch. She was cold but not emotionless, clever and witty, restrained from theatricality in quiet scenes and still not over the top in more exciting ones. Just a beautifully acted role.

I was pleased to see that the four Pevensies were all played by children of the right age. Lucy even still had those rounded childish cheeks! Susan was given more of a character than Lewis really lavished on her, although not a huge amount of arc. Edmund did an excellent job as both the greedy, sulky boy and the redeemed and repentant traitor, although the transformation was a bit rushed. Lucy was a delight—fresh, both childlike and wise beyond her years, one minute a trusting child and the next a valiant queen-to-be. And Peter. At the beginning of the movie, he was a soft-looking nerdy type teenager, and I caught myself wondering how they were ever going to turn him into the High King. That was the last time I would wonder. His journey from boy to king was both subtle and obvious in all the right places, and completely believable.

Overall, just an unbelievably good movie. It's absolutely the best movie I've seen in 10 years, and I still haven't completely come down from the high of how much I loved it.