Living in Germany, where Narnia was close to unknown before the movie was annouced, I decided to give the books a try before watching the movie. I read LWW and found it to be mildly entertaining only, maybe due to the translation, which featured a terrible writing style. Additionally, I didn´t like some of the choices CSL made regarding to what to expand and what to describe in some short sentences. I was left with no desire to read another one, but had the feeling that it could be transformed into a very entertaining movie, IF the director would make the right choices.
When one trailer hit after another, I got the feeling that the movie COULD be a nice one.
When I left the theatre on the night of the premiere, I was totally stunned. The movie exceeded my expectations on EVERY level imagined.
What the novel couldn´t, the movie did almost on the spot - it transportet me to the magical land of Narnia, thanks to the admirable actors, the sets, the music, the cinematography, the effects, and not the least because the director choose to add the right things into the mix, to focus on the really important scenes, to insert some very nice humour, and finally, to deliver a battle that was on par with the best fantasy battles I´ve seen before, including LOTR!
You´ve done it, Andrew, now go on to the next!