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An awesome and ridiculous film that leaves you thrilled beyond the point of your natural endurance
A roaring magical hit
By Christopher Tookey, Daily Mail Last updated at 00:00am on 24.11.05
Tilda Swinton as the White Witch
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe *****
When news came through that a film of CS Lewis's The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe was planned, many must have dismissed the idea as eccentric.
In this age of Harry Potter, and the distinctly atheist children's author Philip Pullman, surely CS Lewis was a little quaint, old-fashioned - and just too Christian - to work in this present climate?
How could a tale involving London wartime evacuee children, a magical wardrobe, a terrifying witch and a lion who serves as a metaphor for Christ translate to an epic film that would take on all the other major franchises?
But then, another epic from another crusty Oxford figure of the 1950s - JRR Tolkien - hasn't done at all badly recently.
And if this amazing film is anything to go by, CS Lewis is about to enjoy a similarly spectacular and hugely well-deserved revival.
Indeed, his haunting story may even prove bigger than The Lord of the Rings. Expect all the Narnia books to go into reprint soon.
For the fact is that The Chronicles of Narnia is a wonderful, colossal, stupendous film that should entertain anyone of any age, nationality or religion.
It is not just a 'must see' but a 'must see again and again'.
Where is that sixth star when you need it?
Not only does it miraculously do full justice to CS Lewis's classic fantasy, it improves upon it and gives a more sophisticated sense of humour.
Above all, there's a spectacular sense of scale that turns the children's sagas into a worthy successor to The Lord Of The Rings as an epic piece of storytelling.
Just as miraculously, it achieves all this without sacrificing the qualities of the original novel, including its charm, sense of wonder and feeling for myth.
Even the Christian subtext of Lewis's book is handled with taste and sensitivity. It's there, but never laboured.
Although shot in New Zealand by an American director, it remains lovingly true to its original cultural background.
With only a few weeks to go until the end of 2005, I was certain that Wallace and Gromit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit would be carrying off my plaudits as Film of the Year.
Now that I have seen this beautiful picture which achieves similar perfection on a far more stunning scale, I would have to give it to Narnia.
The script sticks amazingly - you could say 'religiously' - close to Lewis's novel.
The four Pevensie children are sent from London as Blitz evacueesto the rambling country house of the mysterious, eccentric but twinklingly benevolent Professor Kirke (played by the great Jim Broadbent).
Peter (played by Prince William lookalike William Moseley) is the oldest of the children, but his authority is disputed by his stroppy younger brother Edmund. Peter's somewhat priggish-sister Susan regards herself as a more responsible guardian of their small sister Lucy. It is, of course, Lucy who, in a game of hide and seek, discovers that a huge Jacobean wardrobe on the top floor contains more than just coats and mothballs.
'It's an awfully big wardrobe,' she comments in a masterpiece of English understatement as she stumbles out of its back and into the enchanted (and fabulously large) landscape of Narnia, where the White Witch (played by Tilda Swinton) has ruled the land for a hundred years of winter.
Director Andrew Adamson proves himself not only a master of effects and animation, which might be expected of the director of Shrek and Shrek 2, but an accomplished director of children.
The quality of the four young leading actors is exceptional - light years ahead of the Harry Potter cast, even on a first attempt. They make an utterly convincing and captivating family, and provide marvellous depth to characters which were fairly sketchy in Lewis's original.
Even their comic timing is impeccable, as when Peter resists the responsibility of saving Narnia from the White Witch by objecting, 'We're not heroes'. And Susan amplifies this by adding bathetically: 'We're from Finchley'.
The direction is a delight in both its sweep and its detail, as when the White Witch casually torches a passing butterfly and turns it to stone without even bothering to watch it plummet to earth.
Tilda Swinton must be singled out for her cold, cruel and commanding performance; Ray Winstone and Dawn French are hugely funny as the voices of Mr and Mrs Beaver (just two of many animated triumphs); Liam Neeson is impeccably leonine as the voice of the kind but powerful Aslan.
Despite the long running time (over two hours) I would recommend Narnia even for small children. Whatever your age, this is a magical movie, and far, far classier and more imaginative than I ever dared to hope.
More importantly, expect your heart - and the hearts of your children - to soar.
