Four children, Lucy (Georgie Henley), Edmund (Skandar Keynes), Peter (William Moseley), and Susan (Anna Popplewell), sent to the country to avoid the blitz, travel through a magical wardrobe to the land of Narnia, where an evil witch (Tilda Swinton) keeps the land in perpetual winter. A prophecy declares that four humans will start the overthrow of the witch queen, so she attempts to destroy them. Edmund betrays his siblings and joins with the witch, who makes him a prisoner. The others, aided by a pair of talking Beavers as well as by Father Christmas, who gives them weapons and magical items, seek out the great lion, Aslan (Liam Neeson), and his army.
C.S. Lewis was first and foremost, a Christian pop philosopher. He wrote many essays on God and morality for an adult audience. The Chronicles of Narnia was his shot at kids. The allegory is overwhelming for anyone out of grammar school. Aslan the lion is Jesus who dies for the sins of man (still disobedience, but this time it is in the form of treachery instead of apple-eating) and rises again. He has the answers to all questions and is good, though not tame. The basic theme is clear: You should fight against evil in your life, but in the end, you can’t win; you must give yourself to Christ, and through him, you will be saved. Lewis wraps his preaching in a fantasy world of fawns, talking animals, and magic.
Now the problem isn’t with the not-so-hidden religious message, per se. It’s too hammer-like for me, but then it was intended for children. The difficulty is that what makes a good story is not necessarily what we want in our real lives. I’d love to have all things handed to me in my life, but in fiction, I want to watch a protagonist overcome huge obstacles in order to reach his goal. In Narnia, the message eliminates that structure. There are no protagonists. Rather, there are four main characters who don’t do anything. They don’t overcome anything and they don’t win. It is all done for them. All they need to do is give themselves to Aslan and he takes care of the rest. It’s all quite nice, but it isn’t riveting literature.
The film keeps the main flaws of the book. The lead characters are still of little importance. They are also an unlikable bunch, set to fulfill adult stereotypes of children. Peter is bland, Susan, who is supposed to be bright, uses “logic” to say one stupid thing after another, and Edmund is nasty for the sake of being nasty. Lucy is the only one I had even the slightest touch of sympathy for. Before they enter Narnia, the film has nothing but these four in an over-long opening, making it feel even longer.
In most films, these flaws would be insurmountable, but not here. While the humans are drab, the rest of the characters are astounding. Makeup, digital effects, and acting (sometimes just voice acting) create one wonder after another. Believable fauns and centaurs join with majestic gryphons to battle flawlessly conceived minotaurs. Beavers, wolves, and foxes speak; it does not appear that fake lips have been superimposed on real animals or that computer critters are chatting. These are wild animals…talking. I was ready to type that the faun, Mr. Tumnus was the most amazing, and before I could put my fingers to the keyboard I’d changed that to the beavers, and then to a berserker centaur. There’s no way to choose. And all of these fantastic creatures are not just eye candy. They display real emotion and personality. Here are the characters I can care about. If this had been a film where the Beavers teamed with Mr. Tumnus to lead the army to victory, it could have been one of the finest fantasy films ever made. It is still great to watch.
Every bit as good as the non-humans is the inhuman Queen, brought to unholy life by Tilda Swinton. She is a villain for the ages and Swinton gives her a glare that few would dare to hold. She combines cruel parental authority, Satanic sadism, and a warlord’s combat efficiency. She’s at her best, as is the film, on the battlefield, where no one but a god would want to face her.
The Chronicles of Narnia is the third fantasy series in recent years. It joins with Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter to put monsters and magic on the top of box office charts. In book form, Lord of the Rings is fitting for adults while Harry Potter is for the whole family, and Narnia is for the kids. In film form, Narnia is less age restrictive, and should interest the same audience as Harry Potter. Comparing the three (because everyone is going to), Narnia has the most stunning creatures, but lags behind the others in engaging leads, and the complexity of the world. The land of Narnia seems to consist of one castle, a few small homes, an altar, and a battlefield. It also lacks the “realism” (verisimilitude actually; go look it up) of the other two. It should be a cold place, but children run about in the “snow” without a shiver and plummet into near-frozen rivers without fear of hypothermia.
I was left with an odd feeling about at least some of the residents of Naria. They are astonishingly lacking in empathy. In this place, where horses and badgers speak, a fox makes escape plans, and cheetahs gladly fight side-by-side with humans, the four “heroes” go on a stag hunt for fun (that might mean something else in the book, but this isn’t the book). Can they hear the stag pleading for its life? Do they just not care? They really don’t sound all that much nicer than the Witch.