The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe

Review by Jason Gaston

Some people call The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe a Christian allegory and, of course, they would be right. What else would you call a movie that finds people going into a closet and finding an evil land full of fairies?

I usually shutter when I see the words "the timeless masterpiece brought to life" mentioned anywhere in a trailer or on a movie poster because usually, the timeless masterpiece is about to become watered down and peed on. The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe was a story I read as a little boy and, I think it was actually the first book I ever read cover to cover.

For a kid with ADD, that says a lot.

I never caught the analogy to begin with, but I know about it now. To tell you the truth, it's overblown and over hyped. You might as well say that there is Christian allegory in Superman. Unless you look for it, you won't find it and the entire debate over it is ridiculous. I don't understand why the politically correct and overly sensitive movie going public can't take a movie as a movie instead of getting offended and making a fuss over everything.

What I care about is the movie and, let me tell you, while The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe may not be the masterpiece it's being touted as, it's a nice and serviceable fantasy and (even though I don't really consider it when I review movies) pretty darn faithful to the book in the process.

in case you don't know, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe follows the adventures of four relocated children in World War II England who have been placed inside a house belonging to a reclusive professor.

While playing hide and seek, they stumble into a magical world that you can get to by going through an upstairs wardrobe. In that land, called Narnia, they find themselves hunted by a witch and joining the army of a regal lion named Aslan to free Narnia from the witch's tyranny.

While not up to the high standards set by The Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Chronicles of Narnia has no trouble holding its own in the fantasy department and establishing an identity that belongs to it and it alone.

I say this because I was a little afraid that Narnia would become a carbon copy of Lord of the Rings based solely on the fact that studios love to copy anything successful. Thankfully, Narnia remains a very personal and intimate film compared to the scope and scale of The Lord of the Rings.

To be honest, though, I think that the intimacy of Narnia works to its advantage. It's a story about family and a story about sacrifice for the greater good. Whether taken as a allegory for Jesus or just on its own merits, it's a movie that is nice and warm with likeable characters, nice special effects (the trailers really don't do this movie any favors), and a story that is part scary, part fantasy, and all entertaining.

That being said, Narnia is full of itself in many respects and that was a big turn off to me. Still, I would recommend seeing it. It ain't The Lord of the Rings, but if this film series takes the hobbit's place as a Christmas tradition, I won't be disappointed.