The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
Director: Andrew Adamson
Year Released: 2005
Rating: 1.0
It isn't a stretch to say that this was made to capitalize on the success of recent fantasy epics like Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter in particular, using the same basic idea of having a group of precocious British kids enter a world of magic, wonder, CGI and talking animals (incidentally, Lewis had to have been a major influence on Rowling). Unlike the Potters, however, I've actually read some of Lewis' Narnia books, so much of this wasn't much of a surprise. Tilda Swinton makes an impact as the White Queen while the kids are generally treated as pawns and don't emotionally 'get into it' - I had a similar complaint with the Potter children - and the whole storyline comes across as rather bland. Warning to those who haven't seen this and for some reason want to: director Adamson also worked on Shrek and Shrek 2.
