Review of The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005) by Carlotta 4 — 21 Dec 2017

I watched this again recently after years of not seeing it and was pretty impressed by how well the CGI has held up. Sure some of it is a bit noticeable (most noteably on the beavers) but the centaurs STILL look great and overall it's a well crafted film, technically.

The child actors do a decent job as well. Some better than others and some scenes better than others, but hey--they're child actors. Pretty much any time a child actor can pull off a decent performance I count that as a positive in my book. But without a doubt the best part of this film is the ice queen! Her costuming, her demenour, her freaking awesome battle armor... she's just fun to watch in every scene she's in. Mr. Tumnus, too, is clearly one of the highlights of the film and every scene he's in feels so genuine.

The negatives: Probably 4 or 5 too many slow mo moments. The queen's dwarf minion guy can also be a jarring shift of tone in some scenes. And the child actors (again, while fine) are not the most interesting part of the film but the film does revolve around largely around them and their individual story arcs... I bought Edmund's, and Lucy remained innocent throughout... but they could have worked a bit more on making Peter and Susan's more impactful (though they did do so by the time the sequel film rolled around).

So I'm giving it a 4 star. For "has typical restrictions of child actors but still manages to be entertaining and have some genuinely good moments.".