jeriendhal | Short Review: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

Okay, I'll admit I had little to no interest in seeing this movie, and was mightily ticked when the PTB picked it to be our company's ~~holiday~~ Christmas film this year. Personally I would have prefered to have seen King Kong. But given that the first choice apparently had been Syriana I was more than happy to split the difference. At any rate, I went in with low expectations, given that I'd never read the book, mostly knew C.S. Lewis as a mysoginistic Christian aplogist, and was only barely famliar with the plot thanks to a made-for-TV Rankin-Bass animated version that appeared in the 70's.

I was wrong. Okay? Please don't strangle me with Mr. Tumnus' scarf...

For starters, I realize that Lewis wrote the original book a a sort of gateway drug to the Gospels, with Aslan standing in for the Trinity (He's Jesus! He's God! He's the Holy Ghost! He three dieties in one!) One can imagine the old Oxford don standing on the corner in front of a primary school, passing out copies hidden under his academic robes and whispering to the kids, "The first one's free..." In that respect, I think it can safely be said the story fails utterly. Dude, this thing has got as much to do with the Bible as Beowulf fer Chrissakes. Talking lions, talking beavers, centaurs, fauns, Father Christmas, evil wolves with American accents, the Ice Queen...

Oh, yeah, and you've got Aslan taking that Walk Through the ~~Garden~~ Woods, just prior to doing his big "I cheated death because I Read the Frigging Manual. Neener, neener!" scene. That's about it for the Christian allegory there folks. That and Edmund scans really badly as Judas, given that A) He's just a stupid, scared kid, and B) Peter being an asshole pretty much drove him there anyway.

Besides, I'm pretty sure the Resurrection didn't have a heavy cavalry charge with centaurs in it anyway.

So it may not be the Coolest Movie Ever, but darn it's good. It's got a fairy-tale logic to the thing, which is in contrast to LotR's "History that never happened" feel, which works. Logically Peter should have been wolf bait when he first tried to swing that pigsticker of his. Logically Edmund should have been turned to stone by Jadis, rather than be held prisoner and getting a chance to redeem himself. Logically there's no way the reinforcements could have gotten there in time to do any good.

Who cares about logic, when the film is so much fun? Be sure to stick around through the end credits for a finally little scene that'll make you smile.