Narnia - no don't go! - The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe Reviews

I've never felt so compelled to write a review about a film, but had to discuss the failings of Narnia! As a huge film fan, a Disney nut. and someone who has worked in the entertainment industry...to say this film was a total dissapointment is truly an understatement! I was looking forward to it for weeks and prepurchased our tickets in advance to see it at Disney's Pleasure Island in Orlando. The film was horribly slow and I was actually nodding off for the first hour. The problems with this film were many and made me feel that it was thrown together to meet a deadline. Peter Jackson's WETA, basically the Lucasfilm of New Zealand worked on this film. It looked like it, as the many creatures looked similar in design to the Lord of The Rings films. That bothered me for obvious reasons. Also, Disney passed on Lord of The Rings and since the announcement of Narnia, I have felt it was a lame attempt to play catchup and say they produced a similar epic. It didn't work for me at all! I will make comparisons to LOTR because Narnia is a film blatantly done to respond to Eisner's failure to produce LOTR and capitalize on it's commercial success. Also, because LOTR did so much right and the box office success are proof positive. First, the script for Narnia was weak. Things were not explained! Why were these kids sent to some professor's house beyond the fact that it was World War II and their mother didn't want them being bombed? They are greeted by some crabby woman at a train stop and suddenly in this huge mansion and told not to bother the professor. Why?! It moved at a slugs pace. Characters were not developed! A critical aspect of movie success is to have your audience empathize with, and connect with the characters. This was totally void for me! I couldn't stand the bland kids who were in this film. On the other hand, I felt for characters such as Frodo, Sam, Gandolf and Aragon in LOTR! They were BELIEVABLE even in light of the story being a fantasy! The actors in Narnia weren't. I blame the director and the casting for that. About the only believable thing was they certainly had the stereotypical poor English teeth. These kids were not passionate, they didn't exude confidence, and then the characters were suddenly knife-throwing, archery wielding, sword fighting combatants! One scene shows the older girl practicing by shooting ONE arrow and the little girl whipping out her knife and throwing it like she'd done it a million times! Bah! It was totally out of context! Nothing about this film was explained! It was just "The Prophecy" told to us by a beaver! What was the prophecy beyond 4 kids showing up? Why did this professor have the Wardrobe? Why did it lead to Narnia? The story wasn't developed! Why was Narnia in a War? What were the origins of the Snow Queen? What were the origins of Aslan? None of this was explained or setup for strong interesting story. The blame for this film's lackings lie squarely on Adamson's shoulders because he wrote and directed it. He may have had commercial success with Shrek, but I personally hated Shrek because I felt it was stupid! Another strong criticism of mine was the over exposure of Liam Neeson. This guy is suddenly in every big film and quite frankly, I'm sick of him! He was in Phantom Menace, He was in Kingdom of Heaven, He was in Batman Begins, and now he's the voice of the Lion! Liam stay home for a while! You are over exposed and becoming annoying! Less is more Liam! The only positive comment I can make about Narnia is that the snow covered set in the mountains was beautiful. To sum up, the writing and direction were extremely poorly done, the casting was poor, and the actors were passionless and weak. The story was terribly inadequate and the film literally put me to sleep. I give this film a grade of an D and have no interest in seeing more of this cast, director or story. From a business and stock standpoint, I believe the movie will open with around $40 million in ticket sales due to the hype, but once people hear about and see the things I point out, I believe it will stall badly. I feel it is another Disney flop and will lose money. On the bright side, I saw the first trailer for the new Pirates film and it was certainly enticing. It looks to be ready to challenge the box office success of the first! As for Narnia, Don't Go! Ken