"The Chronicles of Narnia"

This particular review will be a first for me. I'm going to combine reviews for the "Chronicles of Narnia" and the movie that was in the theaters not to long ago, "The Lion the Witch, and the Wardrobe." They tie together perfectly into one review and allow me to give perspective on both.

As a child some of my fondest memories in school back in 3rd grade, was during a time of the day where our teacher would read to us. As it happens "The Chronicles of Narnia" was one of books (series of books) that she read to us.

C.S. Lewis actually wrote this series between 1949 and 1954, so these wonderful stories have been around for quite some time, but because of Disney's desire to make a movie of the 1st book in the series it has drawn attention back to the original series. If you did manage to get out and see "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe" rent, or buy the movie once it was out on DVD, then you have got a small taste of the wonders of Narnia. If for some reason you have not gone out and read the 7 book series after seeing the movie, I encourage you to do so.

I will try to give a quick run down of the Narnia series. Some where in time stood a huge tree with magical properties. The tree was cut down, and the wood was made into several objects. Each object has the power to transport the characters from the real world, into the magical realm of Narnia where time runs so slowly that you could live a life time in Narnia, return to the real world, and have no time pass at all. In "The Lion the Witch, and the Wardrobe, the wardrobe of course was made from wood from the magical tree. In Narnia, there are hundreds of different creatures, all of which can talk as plainly as an human, each one more fascinating then the next. Some are good, some are Evil, but all fear the king of Narnia, Aslan. He is a huge Lion, and he basically equates to Jesus in our world.

Getting back to the movie. Regardless of whether you have read the books or not, director Andrew Adamson does a fantastic job of casting this movie. He sets the different scenes from the book almost exactly as my minds eye remembers them as a child hearing the books read to me in class. Between the remarkable CGI, and live action with the actors, this movie makes Narnia come to life in a brilliant way. Being a little bit of a pessimist, I was very worried about this movie. Trying to pull this movie off I think was a huge gamble from many angles, but wow. The results speak for themselves. Not only did the pull this one off, but they did it in spectacular fashion!

The cast of actors who played the roles of Lucy Pevensie, (Georgie Henley) Edmund Pevensie, (Skandar Keyness) Peter Pevensie, (William Moseley) and Susan Pevensie (Anne Popplewell) all do a wonderful job of taking this movie, and making it their own. I really suggest that if you rent or purchase this movie, that you watch the extra material on the DVD. The show many shots behind the scenes, and they show you the off camera relationship between the kids, and the director. As well as they all got along off set while making the movie, it becomes more then obvious as to why the chemistry is so great on set.

This is truly a fantastic movie, and tells the story of the book almost verbatim. I highly recommend this movie (and books) for children of ALL ages!

My rating for the books as a set, and the movie is 9.00 out of 10.00