Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe (2005) captures the wonder of C.S. Lewis’ fantasy world with incredible visuals and a brilliant cast! I read the first Narnia book long before I tackled Tolkien. It is just more meaningful to me than Middle-Earth. C.S. Lewis was of course a friend to Tolkien and part of the Inklings. There are seven books in the series. A BBC adaptation covered four books and the film series was able to adapt three of the novels. The director and co-writer, Andrew Adamson, also directed Shrek (2001) and Shrek 2 (2004), so like other animation directors, this was his first foray into live action. The screenplay was also written by a team with Ann Peacock, who also worked on the drama In My Country (2004) and the duo of Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely who worked on the MCU films starting with Captain America: The First Avenger (2011).
It begins with the sinister music of Harry Gregson-Williams as we move through the cloudy skies. He later captures the magic and danger in his score. Searchlights sweep the night sky as bombers close in. This is during the Blitz that struck London. Watching the explosions from his room is Edmund Pevensie (Skander Keynes). His mother, Helen (Judy McIntosh), takes him away and calls for his older brother, Peter (William Moseley). He starred in The Royals (2015-2018) as Prince Liam. Young Lucy (Georgie Henley) is covering her ears when her sister Susan (Anna Popplewell) runs in to take her away. Henley was in the drama The Sisterhood of Night (2014). Poppewell was featured as Lady Lola in the drama series Reign (2013-2016). They head to the shelter, but Edmund runs back to get a photo of his father and Peter chases after him. The bombers loom overhead until Peter throws Edmund down yelling at him. The family dynamic and the status of the kids is made very clear here. It was subtle in the book.
Then, we get the train station as the families send away their children to the countryside, their mother says goodbye to everyone and has Peter promise he will watch over his siblings. This is no Platform 9 3/4 and the Pevensie family reaches their stop alone. A horse carriage driven by the strict Mrs. Macready (Elizabeth Hawthorne). They are taken to the country home of Professor Kirke. We later find that he is an important figure in Narnia as a young boy in The Magician’s Nephew (1955), the sixth book of the series. Mrs. Macready laws down the rules including don’t disturb the professor. The next morning is a rainy day, Lucy brings up playing Hide and Seek, and Lucy scrambles with her brother and sister to find hiding places as Peter counts down. She enters a room with only a wardrobe covered by a sheet. In Magician’s Nephew, Digory Kirke finds an apple in Narnia, it grows into a tree in our world and he makes a wardrobe out of it, his story is carved in the front of the wardrobe. Lucy moves through the coats until she ends up in a winter forest!
Lucy looks on in wonder at the forest and snow and walks up to a lamp-post. This was revealed in Magician’s Nephew that the witch had taken an iron bar from London and threw it at Aslan when Narnia was created. The area she is in is called Lantern Waste. When Lucy examines the lamp-post, she hears steps in the snow, this leads to her screaming at the appearence of Mr. Tumunus (James McAvoy) who also screams. McAvoy has been in many genre films playing Charles Xavier in Dark Phoenix (2019). Mr. Tumunus is a Faun, half-goat and half-man, he is shy and learns that Lucy is human, a Daughter of Eve. Mr. Tumunus is incredibly polite and invites Lucy to tea. I especially like his stamping of snow from his hooves. Mr. Tumunus explains that it is a winter of a hundred years, similar to the Long Night in Game of Thrones, he plays his pipes that creates images in the fire and lulls Lucy to sleep. Mr. Tumunus is shocked by an image of a lion. He explains that he was attempting to kidnap Lucy for the White Witch! Lucy’s plea of friendship has Mr. Tumunus leading her back to the lamp-post. She leaps out of the wardrobe and runs to tell her brothers and sister.
Lucy finds out that no time has passed since she entered the Wardrobe. They are still playing Hide and Seek and examine the Wardrobe, but find no trace of Narnia. At night, Lucy heads back to the Wardrobe and Edmund follows her, he enters the Wardrobe and keeps going until he falls into Narnia! He reaches the Lamp-post and is nearly run over by the carriage of the White Witch. After the carriage stops, the vicious Ginarrbrik (Kiran Shah) leaps out and takes a knife to Edmund, until stopped by the White Witch. Shah has many genre credits including Teddo in Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015). There are two races of Dwarfs, the Red Dwarf like Trumpkin and Black Dwarfs such as Ginarrbrik that allied theirselves to the White Witch. Then, the Witch Witch, Jadis (Tilda Swinton) appears. Swinton was the Ancient One in Avengers: Endgame (2019). Jadis came from the lifeless world of Charn, Digory and his friend Polly took her from that place in Magician’s Nephew, Charn was a warning to humans what can be done to the Earth. The White Witch has a crown of icicles and wears a white dress that almost looks like Elsa’s collection.
Edmund doesn’t realize that he is telling the White Witch about his family and she gives him a treat of Turkish Delight, it is a candy that uses a gel of starch and sugar to hold various nuts, very delicious and one of my top candies. She wants Edmund to brings his family to her. She shows him where to find her castle. Lucy takes Edmund back to the wardrobe after talking to Mr. Tumunus. Edmund plays Narnia off as a game which makes Lucy run into Professor Diggory (Jim Broadbent) and hugs him. Broadbent brings a sense of fun to every role he plays like Harold Zidler in Moulin Rouge! (2001). The professor goes to talk to Susan and Peter who explain that their sister found a “magical land” inside of the wardrobe. Up to this point, Diggory never knew that the Wardrobe could take people to Narnia, and of course he is too old to return to it. The next day, they outside playing cricket when Edmund tosses the cricket ball threw a window, Mrs. McCready is not happy. They run through the house until ending up in the Wardrobe. The kids push back through the coats until they end up in the snows of Narnia! Peter and Susan apologize to Lucy and they get into a snowball fight. He has Edmund apologize to his sister and puts Lucy in charge.
They follow Lucy to see Mr. Tumunus and Lucy is shocked to see that the house is in ruin. Susan reads a letter noting that Mr. Tumunus was arrested. They go outside to see a beaver. This is Mr. Beaver voiced by Ray Winstone who played Gort in Snow White and the Huntsman (2012). He takes them back to his dam house with Mrs. Beaver (Dawn French). She is a well known British comic actress who also voiced Miss Miriam Forcible in the animated film, Coraline (2009). The two are very funny in their scenes and also charming. They find Edmund is missing and chase after Edmund who has already entered the castle of the White Witch which looks like her crown with icy towers. Mr. Beaver says that they need Aslan’s help to bring back Edmund. He sees a courtyard of petrified creatures turned to stone, the army that tried to stop the White Witch, and encounters the savage wolf, Maugrim voiced by Michael Madsen. Madsen of course has appeared in many films such as Once Upon a Time.. in Hollywood (2019). The Pevensies are destined to lead a battle to save Narnia fighting for Aslan, the lion who is given a quiet dignity by Liam Neeson. He is known for action films like Cold Pursuit (2019). Also, a far better lion than in the recent Lion King. Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe offers a fresh vision of this fantasy world, unlike the Pauline Bayes illustrations, but contains the heart of C.S. Lewis’ creation with its endearing cast!
Five Lamp-Posts out of Five!
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