I just came back ...

... from seeing The Chronicles of Narnia - The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.

What can I say? Well, I liked it. It's hard to say a lot more than that. I'm still trying to assimilate everything. A student group at St. Vincent College rented out the theater for a midnight showing, so I got in free!

A few points:

1. Even though the projector in the theater we were seeing it in was screwed up, it was beautifully filmed. The landscapes were breathtaking, the animals looked real, and even when they showed our world it looked cool.

2. Best characters: The White Witch was by far my favorite. She was ... well, cold and terrifying. Also, the Pevensie children were quite good. There were some ackward moments, but overall they were great. Aslan ... it's tough to do Aslan, but they pulled it off well. He looked and acted real and I think Liam Neeson was a great pick for his voice.

3. The story did well. Of course you can't get every single little detail in there, and you can't just use all of the lines from the book, but it turned out well. There were a few times I caught myself thinking "That's not how it was in the book" but, overall, they captured the general feeling of the story.

My Analysis: This is a great movie that did a good job of showing the story. I think that many people will be disappointed though, because they were expecting another Lord of the Rings. While there are similiarities, Narnia is a very different story. It's simpler in some respects and deeper in others. While there were some pretty cool battles scenes, those parts aren't the center of the story. In LOTR (the book), the battles are more important. In Narnia (the book), the battles are less key. It's more about what each character does. In the move Narnia, they played up the battles a little more, probably to appeal to the LOTR movie audience (the LOTR books have lots of battles, but they don't take up entire story ... like Helm's Deep did in The Two Towers).

So, in the end, I say: Go see this movie. But, read the books, all the books, as well. You'll get more out of the story (like LOTR) and enjoy the movie more.

But that's just my opinion. Night!

UPDATE:

Here are some other opinions ... most not so positive. I can see some of the flaws that they talk about, but I still enjoyed it. Probably because it was so exciting to see the story on screen. I still say go see it. The books are better ... as is pretty much always the case for every movie, but the movie is worth seeing. [THE NEXT DAY] Everytime I review something major on here and then read what other, smarter people wrote, I second guess myself. I will confess disappointment in some parts of the movie ... but it was still fun to watch parts of the story come to life that had never been done on the big screen before.

... oh well. It's pointless to try to capture exactly what I think about it because in the end it doesn't matter. It's just a movie. Go see it and then decide for yourself.