It's All About The Hamiltons, Baby! (A Chronicles of Narnia Review)

First of all, if the title of this post doesn't make sense to you, you really need to check out the SNL parody video, "Lazy Sunday". (Link stolen from Invisible Lizard, who talked about it a few days ago.) The video does assume some knowledge of the books, general pop culture and history, but it is definitely worth a look and few (dozen) laughs.

We went to see The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe with my family while we were visiting. The Chronicles of Narnia were written by C. S. Lewis, a friend and contemporary of J. R. R. Tolkien. While never the equal of Tolkien's trilogy in quality or popularity, Chronicles has still found an audience among fantasy lovers for many years and with good reason.¹

The first² novel in the Chronicles of Narnia series, TLTWTW introduces us to the land of Narnia as well as some of the characters that will return in later stories. Four children, Peter, Susan , Edmund and Lucy, step through a wardrobe and into a magical world known as Narnia, where it is always Winter and never Christmas. As it turns out, Narnia hasn't always been this way, but has fallen under the spell of the White Witch. The children learn from various creatures and talking animals³ that the White Witch has been ruling, but that Aslan (who we eventually learn is a lion) is returning to restore Narnia. The story plays out, sampling bits of mythology from various sources and layering them with large portions of Christianity, weaving a tale that is familiar, yet entirely its own.

So, what did I think? I enjoyed it. Unfortunately, just like the novels, its similarities will encourage comparisons to The Lord of The Rings trilogy and those will not be kind. Judged on its own, it is a fairly well told story with good but not great acting (almost all films centering on children suffer from this to some extent) and remarkable visual effects. So, yes I enjoyed it, but I still felt that there was something not quite right. Something missing or out of place. Maybe it was the direction; Andrew Adamson's only previous directing credits are for the two Shrek films. Perhaps, as eventually happens to Susan, I have simply allowed myself to grow up and can no longer access the magic of Narnia as I once did.

¹ To be fair, he may not have been Tolkien's equal, but Lewis does manage to avoid Tolkien's unpleasant propensity for verbosity. Some might call it meticulous attention to detail, but I call it really loving the sound of your own voice. Really, I love Tolkien, but people say that he needs to shut up more often that they say it about me, and that's never good.

² Yes, it is the first novel. There has been quite a bit of debate over this recently. I even heard a discussion on this while listening to NPR. (The December Reader's Review on the Diane Rehm show was for TLTWTW.) While events in The Magician's Nephew and The Horse and His Boy take place before (or in the case of The Horse and His Boy, during) TLTWTW, The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe was written first and lays the foundation upon which all other Narnia novels are built. It is first, and I will no more argue this than I will allow you to say that the first Star Wars movie contains Jake Lloyd and Jar Jar Binks.

³ The animals in Narnia talk. Yet they eat meat and use animals for transport and labor. Where are they getting the meat? From the talking animals? How do the animals feel about their roles? Am I the only one disturbed by this? I'm not a vegetarian, nor do I plan to be. However, if an animal displayed a level of sentience on par with humans (or greater than some) and especially if the messianic figure in my world was an animal, I think I might think twice about eating meat. I can say for sure that if the horse I am riding starts talking to me, I would at least converse with it about whether its ok with me sitting on its back. "Are you alright down there? I'm really sorry. I've been meaning to lose this holiday weight, but it's just not working." Half a mile later: "You still ok? I can walk for a while if you'd like." Two miles: "Are you sure I'm not bothering you? I really don't want to cause any problems." Another mile or so: "Do you need to stop for a drink or anything?" A quarter mile down the road: "Still doing--" Horse throws me and tramples me underfoot: "Would you shut up!" Bleeding on the ground: "Sorry. I just wanted to make sure you were--" *STOMP*<sup>4

4</sup> Is it bad that I just wrote a narrative that included my own death? Should I see someone about this?<sup>5

5</sup> Is it also bad that I have a footnote to a footnote and now a footnote to a footnote on a footnote? What about the fact that my footnotes are actually considerably longer than the actual post? See what I meant about not shutting up?