The critics in a recent Reuters (I know! gasp!) article have liked Narnia, so far, including ones in the U.K., where presumably they would be more critical, being the birthplace of Lewis and all. Some bits:
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - It took C.S. Lewis five years to write "Chronicles of Narnia," one of the best-loved children's series of all time, and a half-century for his heirs to get it to the big screen but positive early reviews indicate the old fashioned yarn made the journey safely.
"The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" opens on Friday in North America and widely in Europe in what the Walt Disney Co. and Walden Media hope will be the first of a series based on Lewis' seven books.
Los Angeles Times reviewer Carina Chocano described the film as "real by the logic of childhood" and noted that the book's much-discussed Christian themes do not overwhelm the simple tale of four children's adventures in Narnia.
"As a Christian primer, it's terrible. As a story, it's timeless," Chocano wrote in a review on Wednesday.
Television's Ebert & Roeper praised the cutting-edge special effects and called it "a fantasy that has charm ... beauty and enchantment."
Reviewers also praised the film for hewing faithfully to the novel's plot about four children who escape the World War II London Blitz to a country house owned by an old professor.
They discover a magical wardrobe that leads to a wintry world inhabited by talking animals, a white witch and a Christlike lion named Aslan.
***
Lewis once said that the idea for the Chronicles of Narnia began not with an intention to write Christian fables, but with the images of a faun carrying an umbrella, a queen on a sledge and a magnificent lion.
"At first there wasn't anything Christian about them. That element pushed itself in of its own accord," he wrote.
Christian viewers will see parallels between scenes in the film involving the death and rebirth of Aslan, in which the two girls spend a night weeping over his dead body before he returns to life and the New Testament's description of the resurrection of Jesus.
GO SEE THIS MOVIE!! Please...it'll make a lot of Hollywooders mad, and it will have box office execs. scratching their heads yet again....
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment