reMedia!

An entertainment blog that pops culture right in the kisser.

Wednesday, April 12, 2006

film | A few ingredients short of Turkish delight

The bottom line on THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE: The lion's a regal drag, the witch deserves more screen time, and the wardrobe stops being fun in less than an hour. Oh well. Total, that's like one-and-a-half out of three, and one-and-a-half out of three ain't a total bust.

Disney's adaptation of C.S. Lewis' beloved kiddie-lit-cum-biblical-allegory casts a beguiling spell in its early scenes, as four plucky school-age siblings — wide-eyed Lucy (Georgie Henley), devious Edmund (Skandar Keynes), stubborn Susan (Anna Popplewell) and headstrong Peter (William Moseley) — evacuate bomb-ravaged London in the thick of World War II for an expansive country estate in rural England. You probably recall from childhood reading endeavors how little Lucy, during a game of hide and seek, discovers an ominous wardrobe (check!) that houses a portal to Narnia, an otherworldly realm of perpetual winter full of mythical creatures, sweeping vistas and, thus, the best computer-generated special effects money can buy. What you may not expect are the quaint storybook enchantments in which director Andrew Adamson (Shrek) swaddles these moments — the book's most iconic and memorable — as Lucy, played with winning pluck by the adorable Henley, enters Narnia and befriends a nervously chatty faun called Mr. Tumnus (James McAvoy, utterly affable). Her older brothers and sister eventually follow, of course, for a family vacation at a magic kingdom that doesn't cost thousands of dollars.

And then, right as Narnia the movie seems ready to take off, Narnia the landscape grows a bit cluttered. In increasingly charmless developments, the awestruck brood learn that their snowy surroundings are actually the work of the wicked white witch (check!!) Jadis (the amazing Tilda Swinton), whose self-imposed hundred years of coldhearted rule subjugated narnia's legit lion (check!!!) king, the noble Aslan (voiced by Liam Neeson), and that a big-ass Narnian prophecy foresees a quartet of human youngsters defeating Jadis and ascending to the throne in victory. The kids accept this alarming news without much hesitancy, though I suppose that when you've emerged from an ensorcelled armoire to hear a talking menagerie claim that you and your preteen kin are imperative in destroying the forces of darkness in a theme-park jihad, you kinda just go with the flow.

Lewis' text has always read like the New Testament rewritten as a metaphorical adventure tale for Sunday-schoolers whose eyelids flutter with disinterest at the first sign of ecclesiastical solemnity. (Instead of Jesus, there's a mighty warrior lion fighting a mean sorceress and her army of beast-men! And heroic half-pints help save the day, with a special appearance by Santa Claus as an arms dealer!) But Disney's Narnia partnership with Walden Media, a production company closely linked to the conservative Christian Right, retains religious allusions both diminutive (references to Genesis and a direct quote from the gospel of John) and blindingly obvious (a character's pseudo-crucifixion and resurrection due to "deep magic") that, while faithful to the source, suck the delight from the movie's second half. Aslan might be a wondrous and expressive digital creation, but as a stand-in for Christ, he's a righteously invincible bore. This leaves Narnia's epic-combat climax — Braveheart for the booger-eating set — for all of its impressive technical wizardry, relentlessly hokey sound and fury without even a hint of surprise or feeling.

Ultimately, this Lion's main attraction is the enigmatic Swinton (The Deep End), whose indelibly striking presence and icy-glam looks perfectly compliment the frostbitten villainess of Lewis' prose. Not every actress can simultaneously sell a menacing scowl and a knowingly campy wink while riding a chariot pulled by polar bears across a battlefield populated by muppets in chain mail. Swinton sure does, and that alone is enough to make you wish that evil triumphed over good — just this once. C

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I haven't seen it yet, but that satyr-looking dude is SEXY! lol. Look how base I can be. By the way, EXCELLENT reviews. They made me realize that I am a pretentious movie whore providing too slim a vocabulary with which to express the full extent of my disapproval of The Interpreter and Hotel Rwanda. lol. I must admit, I love that our reviews of A History of Violence are so different. ;) Rock on, Jameson.

12:27 PM  

Post a Comment

<< Home