Narnia - the saga begins

Disney's THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: THE LION, THE WITCH, AND THE WARDROBE is not to be confused with at least two previous films - one an American animated cartoon feature and the other a BBC production - of the same name. But, after all, the book is a modern classic for young readers and, like Bible stories and Shakespeare, it will inspire multiple productions. Without impugning the previous attempts, Disney has done it right.

Briefly, very briefly, this is the first episode of a saga that goes on for at least seven books (and the second ep is already in production). In England during the Blitz, four children - in order of seniority, Peter (William Moseley), Susan (Anna Popplewell), Edmund (Skandar Keynes, as his voice was changing part of his soundtrack was redone by his sister) and Lucy (Georgie Henley, and her older sister has a cameo of Lucy grown up) - are sent for their safety to a rural sanctuary, the spacious mansion of a Professor Kirke (Jim Broadbent, hardly recognizable). The house is far too quiet, there's no one else to play with, and out of boredom the four children embark on a game of hide-and-seek. Little Lucy finds a room whose only furniture is a wardrobe (for apartment dwellers, a wardrobe is a sort of portable extra clothes closet, this one a lovely work of carpentry), and she dives into it to hide. Stepping back behind the fur coats hanging there, she steps into a magical world called Narnia, where it is deep winter. She meets a faun (a sort of satyr) named Tumnus (James McAvoy), and learns that Narnia is under the rule of the White Witch, who has decreed a permanent winter and is eager to capture any humans straying into Narnia. Hours pass for Lucy until she returns to the wardrobe and the spare room but to everyone else only a few seconds have elapsed. Lucy tells the others what happened but they don't believe her and when she tries to show them, the wardrobe has the normal backboard only a foot or so from its front. Then in the middle of the night Lucy wanders back into the wardrobe and into Narna and brother Edmund, curious, follows her -- and instead of finding Lucy encounters the White Witch (Tilda Swinton) who promises him a kingdom if he will bring all his siblings with him. Edmund, evidently not knowing about the Witch's hatred of humans, mentions that his sister has already met Tumnus. When Lucy and Edmund return to the real world together, Edmund refuses to corroborate Lucy's account. But, one summer day, the children send a cricket ball crashing through a window and try to hide ... in the wardrobe, all coming out in the wintery Narnia, and finding Tumnus gone, his home ransacked, and two talking beavers eager to hide them. Edmund wanders off to find the Witch and is thrown into her dungeon, while his three siblings are on the run from the wolves of the White Witch. Their very presence in Narnia is causing a spring thaw.

OK, so that wasn't at all brief, and yet I'm not even half-through the story. There's an army of good guys, led by a talking lion (voice of Liam Neeson), an army of bad guys led by the Witch, and both sides are populated with talking animals and mythological creatures like centaurs and minotaurs. There's an enormous battle scene and lots and lots of special effects.

It's all up there on the screen. After all, most of the actors are unknown -- Tilda Swinton is the only nomenclatura on-screen for a significant amount, Broadbent's part is less than five minutes, and Neeson is just a voice. The production values are very high, and it clearly shows. The credits list too many people to sit in the same theatre for the same showing. Filming was done in England, Hollywood, New Zealand, Poland, Czech Republic, Guatamala, and probably a couple more places. Old Walt would've been proud. The film got an Oscar for makeup and was nominated for Oscars for sound and visual effects. It was nominated for a flock of other awards and won a fair number.

The Chronicles of Narnia are famous as children's books because they were adventures written with a view toward instilling Christian values. Overt Christianity is not in evidence - although a hero who gives up his life, rises from the dead, and revives the dead, may ring a familiar bell - but we have bravery, forgiveness, loyalty, compassion, selflessness, and consideration exemplified here. The characters, even the mythological ones, make an impression and draw you in.

If you put a gun to my head and insisted that I say something negative about the film: It does require some sitzflesch (2 hours 15 minutes), there are children in jeopardy, and big violent battle scenes, so kids younger than 8 probably shouldn't see this (maybe rent the animated version for them). It's easy to confuse this movie with Lord of the Rings - not for the storyline but for the many strange characters (Tilda Swinton at the White Witch here looks a lot like Cate Blanchette in LOTR, the fauns look a little like hobbits, there are also talking trees), the big battle scenes, and some of the special effects.

The DVD includes a version of the film with commentary, a version with pop-up historical notes (very distracting and not very helpful), and a blooper reel - in which the bloopers are not very amusing but you do get to see how some of the special effects were done.

This is a fantasy movie that can inspire and educate, perhaps even uplift, the viewer. It appears that Disney is determined to film each book in the Narnia series (the exec producer is C.S. Lewis's stepson). Not seeing this leaves you out in the cold as much as not seeing Star Wars a quarter-century ago.