"we're from finchley!" (NARNIA, BITCHES!)
great flick. I mean, I had more fun than I did at TTT and ROTK, not quite as much as was had when I watched TTT:EE, though. and of course it's not as good as either version of FOTR, but yeah. I mention those coz it's blatantly gonna be compared to them. probably HP too. and it smacks the crap outta any HP work too. well, not azkaban, certainly not overall. though I'd say it was more enjoyable, but not as good. but it's an unfair comparison given the two directors. one is awesome, one ain't. but yeah, I liked it.
I mean in a few places it was directorially off, but considering it's from the same guy who made shrek, that was to be expected. some stuff just felt underemphasised or not epic-enough (jackson, for example, tricked us with a lot of wide-scope panning shots and an overdramatic score for simple shit like aragorn, legolas and gimli running across mountains) and matte painting backgrounds are lame, but the story was just great enough to overcome all that. for me it was, anyway. I wasn't too pleased with the whole turkish delight thing, in retrospect it seems like an anti-Islam slur, given the christian nature of the good guys (aslan is basically christ). but meh, I ain't gonna dwell.
as far as acting goes, well, jim broadbent is the mack daddy, in fact the entire adult cast is good. the girl who played lucy was AWESOME. now, she fluffed one line delivery but on the whole she was great. did a great job crying. but I was mainly impressed by how fucking english she was, and I mean in mannerisms and attitude here. straight out of upper-class england was she. now, you can teach them lines but her delivery (esp durin' the convo with tumnus) was flawless. edmund kicked ass, and had brown eyes which set him apart from the other 3 which was a great casting decision. to be fair he had the hardest role, and okay he wasn't brando but he was good enough.
peter was crap. but then his character is crap too, so that worked I guess. he's like cyclops, you know you should like him, but he's just such a twat. the talking animals could have seemed totally fucked up, but the first one you encounter is voice by RAY MOTHERFUCKIN' WINSTONE. so he basically sets it all up to own ass. what a champion. liam neeson deserves mention for being awesome as aslan.
oh, and susan was HOT. ahem. I mean, she did a good job acting and definitely established her character (which is the least exposed/important of the four, so she coulda faded into scenery), but she was HOT. don't look at me like that! she rather amazingly resembles my ex-girlfriend, so that's why I thought she was hot. the girl is also 17, so I feel less sleazy for wanting to hit it. but really, it was so distracting. oh, and tilda swinton owned as jadis. freakin' evil, was she. and her little henchman dude, whilst stereotypical, was hilarious.
back to the metalevel, well it's nowhere near as loaded as any masterwork, it's a pretty simple christian allegory really. but it's just so enjoyable. the end battle was well handled I thought, the fight-coreographer did a great job coz jadis looked UNTOUCHABLE until edmund broke her ice dealy, and even then her movement and grace was unparralleled.
OH, and the bit at the start showing the nazis bombing london was great. mainly because lots of yanks will see this film and hopefully realise what world war II was actually like and how europe actually had to DEAL with it. anyway, overall? I dunno, the film had some errors (big and small) but the charm and niceness of the story won and the quality of the acting won out in the end.
I liked it.