Thursday, December 15, 2005

The Chronicles of Narnia - The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe


I had no clue what Narnia was all about. I had seen its name being mentioned a few times at hollywood.com, saying it was one of the eagerly awaited movies of the year,et al... but thats it. It was only after a collegue here (an Englishman) told me about it that I got excited to see the movie.
"The Chronicals of Narnia" is a series of seven books written by C.S Lewis, an English Author. These books are about an alternate world called "Narnia" and the adventures of a few children who manage to discover it in various ways. Although I cannot make comparisons because I haven't read the Narnia series.. I still got the feeling that, in some ways, it is similar to Harry Potter..

So I went to watch the first installment of Narnia - "The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe"...
had to endure 15 minutes of commercials at the beginning.. most of them aimed at children (which kinda made me feel not too good about the movie)... Then things brightened up with a terrific trailer of the next Pirates of the Carribean movie - "Dead Man's Chest".. Ahoy! Put that one on my list..

The movie starts off nice & slow... the build up to the actual intro to Narnia is concise yet effective. When they did show the alternate world.. I must say I was a tad dissappointed... maybe coz I had a mental picture of something spectacular & out of this world (in every sense).. But to be honest, it did get better as the winter dissappeared and we were treated to some stunning locales of New zealand... or was it Ireland?
It is basically the story of these 4 kids.. in post world war era, who discover Narnia behind a wardrobe. Narnia is full of mythical/magical creatures.. It is ruled by the evil "White Witch" from the past 100 years.. A prophecy says that 2 sons of Adam (boys) and 2 daughters of Eve (girls) will land up in Narnia and end her rule. So she wants to catch hold of every human who comes to Narnia and freeze him/her. The rest of the story is about how these kids join forces with the real king of Narnia - Aslan and defeat her. And guess what.. Aslan is a Lion.. and a phenomenal one at that. The girl who's played the youngest kid is absolutely adorable..The Witch is superbly menacing!

Comparisons with the "Lord of the Rings" are inevitable (especially when you see the final battle) and not without reason too. For those who aren't aware, C.S.Lewis was a contemporary of the equally legendary J.R.R Tolkein, the author of LOTR. Narnia also has some of the key elements of Christianity imbibed in it.. just like LOTR. And finally, it seems that the director of the movie is a friend and fellow New-Zealander of a certain Peter Jackson.

All said and done, its a pretty decent movie. Perhaps more enjoable if you've read the book.
I still didn't think it was worth 6.5 pounds... But then, of late, no movie other than King Kong looks to be worth that much to me..
Come on Naomi.. scream for your life!

Currently Listening to: Some Techno Instrumental

1 comment:

Unknown said...

It is a shame you haven't read the books. I think you would quite enjoy them. They will fill in the gaps that the movie did not cover. In my personal oppinion, the awesomeness is in the books. But that is true for most books turned movie.