I was never a huge fan of the Narnia books, and The Lion etc. in particular bothered me with its painfully unsubtle Christian allegory. But my lack of affection for the movie has less to do with its preachiness (which is less painful than I'd feared it would be) than with its dullness.
The CGI effects are quite nicely done, but as we saw with King Kong, the danger of CGI is that the director is likely to obsess on it at the expense of everything else in the movie. This movie isn't as badly paced as Kong was, but once you've marveled at the pretty images, the rest of the movie is terribly flat.
The actors playing the Pevensie children are bland as can be; only Georgie Henley as Lucy musters up any personality at all. Tilda Swinton as the White Witch swoops through the movie in an atrocious wig and gowns that feel like leftovers from a bad Carol Burnett sketch; it's not a good performance, and it has nothing to do with the style and tone of the movie surrounding her, but I found myself grateful for her every appearance, because she is the only thing in the movie that has any energy at all. (In that regard, Swinton's Witch is to this movie what Renee Zellweger's Young Granny Clampett was to Cold Mountain.)
I did like James McAvoy, who is perfectly charming as Tumnus the faun, and the scene of Aslan's sacrifice is quite moving. But the movie is so plodding and hollow that its few minor rewards are certainly not enough to recommend it.
No comments:
Post a Comment