Friday, December 09, 2005

Two Films; Two Resurrections

Saw two movies yesterday. I finally caught The Corpse Bride at the second-run theater. I'd heard unenthusiastic reviews of it, but I'm a Judge for Myself kind of guy. The songs weren't inspiring, but I loved the puppetry and the scenario in which the hero was forced to choose between two likable women. The end though? Completely lost me. It's like they got to the end and thought, "Now what do we do?" Then they came up with something that they thought would be emotionally satisfying, but makes no sense within the rules the movie's established for itself.

I also saw a midnight showing of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe last night. (I have a hard time calling it The Chronicles of Narnia, since I assume that any sequels will also carry that name.) If you haven't read the book that it's based on and want to see the movie, you should stop reading here because I'm going to talk about some spoilers. If you know the story, you should be just fine reading what I've written below, but still... spoiler warning.

I remember faking an illness when I was a lad, so that I could stay home from church and watch the cartoon version of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. I'd just read the book and it was probably one of the first times I'd seen a book I'd read adapted into another medium. But in spite of that early episode of fandom, I don't dig Narnia all that much. I blame Tolkien, to whom I was exposed a few years later.

Lewis's allegories in Narnia are so obvious that I remember picking up on them as a kid and being unsure what I thought of them. On the one hand, it was the same story I'd been hearing in Sunday school for years and once I made the connections of who represented whom, I could predict the outcome of the story; on the other hand, it was being told in a way that fired my imagination with ice queens, faeries, talking animals, and a cool portal to another world. Once I read The Hobbit though, I realized I could get the magical elements without the repetition of a plot I already knew. So I left Narnia behind, having only read the one book.

With that in mind, my expectations for the movie last night were pretty low. There are parts of the story that I'm very fond of, all of them in the first half, so I expected to be thrilled by the discovery of the portal in the back of the wardrobe, the image of the solitary lampost in the snow (which has always given me strong feelings of comfort), and the funny beavers. And I expected to be a little let down with the events around Aslan's death and resurrection.

The movie does an excellent job at reinforcing the stuff I like from the story. It also makes more palatable the stuff that I usually don't. The little girl who plays Lucy is excellent and the emotion she displays throughout the film connected me to what was going on. Her excitement and giddiness over discovering Narnia and her grief over some of the things that happened there led me through the story and had me feeling the same things. So, when Aslan died in the film, I was more affected by it than I was when I read the book. (I had the same reaction to the death of Boromir: was left cold by the book, but touched by seeing it played out on screen.) Father Christmas (who's never named in the film, but is obviously who he is) is a lot more convincing in the movie too.

So, considering what it was and my feelings about the source material, I was very happy with the movie. It was impressive to look at too. Not Lord of the Rings impressive, mind you. The CGI is good, but it's ILM good. It's Star Wars good. Good enough to keep you in the story; but (unlike, say, Gollum) you never forget that you're watching a character that was created on a computer. Also unlike Lord of the Rings, the costumes and props all looked very new and unused. Frodo and his friends wore clothing that looked like they'd owned it for a while; Peter and company looked like they'd just stepped out of the Wardrobe Department.

Disney would like The Chronicles of Narnia to be the next Lord of the Rings. It can't. It isn't. The source material isn't as sophisticated and the film isn't as well produced. It's going to suffer in comparison. But, left on it's own, like when I first read the book before I'd read The Hobbit, it's a fine story with a strong emotional center and a fantastic, wonderful setting.

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