Saturday, December 10, 2005

Returning to Spare Oom

Well, I have just gotten off work, and as promised here is my review of The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe. In a word, this movie was fantastic. I am not the type to cry at movies (okay, movies other than Star Wars and The Passion of the Christ), but I had to put padlocks on the dams often during this movie. I don't think there was ever such a sense of God's presence in any movie I've ever seen other than "Passion." When Aslan appeared I just wanted to curl up and hide, it was like Jesus himself had walked into the room. And that's not just a metaphor--the entire theater suddenly took a metaphorical step back at the appearance of the Lion. There were gasps of wonder from the children and ooos of impressment from the adults. Myself, I was acutely aware of my own condition before a holy God. I identified heavily with Peter Pevensie--there must be a mistake! I'm just a regular guy! You can't have chosen me! Okay, I'll hold off the insane sermonizing for a bit. This movie was spectacular. The graphics were impressive. They were not, unfortunately, as seamless as Revenge of the Sith--it was obvious many times when CG was present. No, I'm not talking about the CG characters--those were pretty obvious. I mean the scenery and stuff. But they made you believe they were really there. It was very well cast. You could see that each actor fit the role they were playing. It was also very faithful to the book. Of course, as with all movie adaptations of novels, there are things that get left out, but none were major. I might make an exception for the part where Edmund and Aslan converse about the Deep Magic after the battle. I think that was important to the story. But it worked okay without it. I was warned beforehand that the character of Lucy really stole the show, and that is the plain truth. This movie really drives around Lucy Pevensie. Without her none of this would have come to pass. Without her none of them would have gotten home in the end. Her character draws the emotion out of you at the appropriate times. She genuinely causes the audience to feel the emotions she feels when Aslan appears, when Aslan dies, and when Aslan comes back to life. That's probably why I say I had to lock up the dams. I will admit they did overflow when Aslan died. *wink* As I'm tired and in need of sleep, I will publish a detailed analysis of points I feel this movie did well and points on which it needed work later. But I will leave you with this: after seeing it the first time, I really, really wanted to go back in for the 8 PM show. But the fact that I had to work really prevented that possibility!

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home