Reviews, contests, Joe McElderry, and the Heroes of Narnia.

First, here’s two great reviews of the movie! There’s also a contest for people on Facebook, background stories for some of the cast as well as Joe McElderry, and a discussion about the Heroes of Narnia.

Nepal’s Republica News reviewed the movie and called it  “A Voyage Worth Taking.” Here’s some excerpts: “The movie stays true to the book and shows a Narnia that is stunning and heavy on the fantasy.” … “The Voyage of The Dawn Treader, like all other Narnia movies is heavy on morals and self-examination. The beauty of this being that the concepts portrayed can be understood and taken at various degrees.” You can read the whole review HERE. Interestingly, they said that the 3D was “unnecessary.” Contrast that with the next review.

An Indian site, called Yentha, gave the movie 8 out of 10 stars. Their verdict? “Narnia 3 is engaging, enchanting and enjoyable. You will not regret the extra money you pay for the 3D glasses, nor will you be deprived of fun or adventure.” They said that the green mist plot was slightly hard to follow, but overall, “the other mysterious elements – like the book of incantations, the dwarfs and lost warriors, all make it a very engaging experience.” Read the whole review HERE. Thanks to BenBarnesOnline on Twitter for these two reviews!

ITN wrote an article about Joe McElderry’s two singles for the movie, There’s A Place for Us and Someone Wake Me Up. Both of the songs are on iTunes, as of yesterday. They discussed how he filmed the music video for Someone Wake Me Up, and Joe said, “‘It’s a huge storm and I’m singing in the middle of this storm, which you can imagine, having gallons of water poured on you with clothes on and wind and smoke blowing in your face, is quite distracting, so it took a quite a while’, he said.” You can read the whole article HERE.

ITN also interviewed a couple of the cast members to ask them about their lives before they became actors in the  Narnia films. Some excerpts: “Ben Barnes who plays King Caspian in the latest film, described his first role as a ‘rock star alien’ adding that he made his guitar himself our of cardboard and gold foil.” … “Meanwhile Yorkshire beauty Georgie Henley declared: “I was Babushka the Russian Granny!” You can read the whole article HERE; it’s pretty funny! =D

Harper Collin’s has a special contest exclusively on Facebook. You can enter it HERE. One Grand Prize winner will receive the 60th edition Chronicles of Narnia series, an iPad, and a $100 gift card to iTunes. 5 runner-ups will receive the 60th edition Chronicles of Narnia series and an iPod Nano. To compete, you must “like” the page on Facebook and give them your name and email address.

The Huffington post wrote an article entitled “The True Heroes of Narnia.” They write about how even though the movie seems to be having a bad time with critics, the author says that he has to, in the end, take his hat off to the two men who have worked incredibly hard to make the series happen. Here’s what he wrote: “If the aforementioned critics are right in predicting a flop, there will be plenty of time to offer post-mortems in the days ahead, but regardless of the outcome, and despite all of the problems that the series encountered, as the father of young children my hat is off to two men who worked valiantly to make the series happen, Lewis’s stepson Douglas Gresham and the man who funded the enterprise, Philip Anschutz.” You can read the whole article HERE. I hope all of you Narnia fans out there understand just how herculean of a task it was to bring our beloved Narnia books to the silver screen, and that you are thankful to these two men and to everyone else who made it all possible! The best way to applaud their efforts is to go see the movie, and take as many friends as you can.