When news came through that a film of CS Lewis’s The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe was planned, many must have dismissed the idea as eccentric. In this age of Harry Potter, and the distinctly atheist children’s author Philip Pullman, surely CS Lewis was a little quaint, old-fashioned – and just too Christian – to work in this present climate?
How could a tale involving London wartime evacuee children, a magical wardrobe, a terrifying witch and a lion who serves as a metaphor for Christ translate to an epic film that would take on all the other major franchises?
But then, another epic from another crusty Oxford figure of the 1950s – JRR Tolkien – hasn’t done at all badly recently. And if this amazing film is anything to go by, CS Lewis is about to enjoy a similarly spectacular and hugely well-deserved revival. Indeed, his haunting story may even prove bigger than The Lord of the Rings. Expect all the Narnia books to go into reprint soon. For the fact is that The Chronicles of Narnia is a wonderful, colossal, stupendous film that should entertain anyone of any age, nationality or religion.
It is not just a ‘must see’ but a ‘must see again and again’. Where is that sixth star when you need it? Not only does it miraculously do full justice to CS Lewis’s classic fantasy, it improves upon it and gives a more sophisticated sense of humour. Above all, there’s a spectacular sense of scale that turns the children’s sagas into a worthy successor to The Lord Of The Rings as an epic piece of storytelling.
[read the rest at This is London]