The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

Other than it sucks to type its long title, I'm not sure how I really feel about The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe yet. Actually, I'm not sure how bad I think it is yet, or if maybe I'll end up thinking it's just an ok movie.
I think kids will love it, of course, because it has fantasy and it has cute animals and it has kids, but for adults, well, lets just say that I spent most of the time drawing parallels with Christianity and the Lord of the Rings movies, and there's a lot to compare about them here. The problem first is that the world of Narnia is disappointingly small, at least what we get to see in this part because future films will most probably expand it, but in a very different story because apparently all the books have different characters and only Aslan the lion is part of all of them. The second and bigger problem is that this is a Disney movie, and more important, a Walden Media movie, meaning that they are going to the little kids and of course they are getting a PG rating for the movie, making it feel like it's an epic story on a diet. It really sucks because with the huge battles with swords and animals biting other animals' necks, the action needs some kind of blood, at least a little, but there's none of it, not even wounds, and they even cut away from the money shots at the killing scenes, because those would've also given them a higher rating.

Based on the acclaimed and super famous (they say, because I'd never heard about Narnia before the movie started being promoted) books by C.S. Lewis (who I hear was a friend and rival of J.R.R. Tolkien), the story is adapted by Ann Peacock, Christopher Markus, Stephen McFeely and Shrek and Shrek 2 director Andrew Adamson who is also at the helm here. This is an epic story with an ancient prophecy, and it involves 4 human children going to Narnia to rescue from The White Witch, which has ruled for the past hundred years, a hundred years without Christmas. The children must be two Sons of Adam and two Daughters of Eve, and they will are to be take the power from the White Witch and then go on to rule Narnia. Since they are children, they will be helped in battle by the savior/messiah Aslan. I put a lot of the religious stuff there but don't worry, is all handled very well and sporadic (there's also Santa, though but more on him later).

I really liked the beginning of the movie, very dark and scary set in England during a bombing of London in World War II. The our four heroes are sent to a house for refugee children and the magic begins. The scenes at the mansion are great and the kids show some good chemistry there. The first couple of visits to Narnia are very well staged and with some good magic in them which is then lost as the movie progresses. Even right at times during those first visits as Mr. Tumnus first scene with Lucy and the White Witch's first scene with Edmund are totally pedophelic.
But let me explain, the kids are siblings Peter (William Moseley), Edmund (Skandar Keynes), Susan (Anna Popplewell) and Lucy (Georgie Henley) Pevensie and they get to Narnia via a wardrobe they found in the aforementioned mansion while playing hide and seek. When they get there, they are told the prophecy by a talking beaver and his wife (voiced by Ray Winstone and Dawn French) who then take them to see Aslan with the help of an allied Fox voiced by Rupert Everett (and yes, all animals talk). On their way they also meet with Santa, who is there for just one scene and brings them gifts in a very Galadriel kind of way so the gifts are all either weapons or magic items they will eventually use when it's necessary for the story. They will end up fighting Tilda Swinton's White Witch and her battalion of animals (which are different from the good animals: Cheetas are good and White Tigers are bad, for example) and Ork-like beasts. The centaurs are good and very cool by the way. Besides freeing Narnia from the constant winter brought by the White Witch, beating her will bring back to life Mr. Tumnus (a faun, played by James McAvoy) and many other creatures that the White Witch has turned into stone, the penalty for those who don't report to the police that they've seen a human. The police are half bull-half humans by the way.

I liked the 4 kids, well written characters and good actors. They did a great job even though their characters get way cliched towards the end. The White Witch and Aslan are pretty good too, though there's not enough of them for us to really care about them, which pretty much sucks because Aslan is supposed to be kind of like Gandalf but it just doesn't work.
And then the rest is bad, most of the secondary characters need a lot of work as they have no backstory at all (specially the lead centaur and the professor back at the mansion who is played by a wasted Jim Broadbent), and that was my problem with the entire story and the prophecy, even though there are a lot of characters, it's all too simple.

On the technical aspects, the cinematography and the score are almost non-existent (and the 3 pop songs at the end by Alanis Morissette, Imogene Heap and Tim Finn, sucked). The costumes, though kind of generic, are pretty good, and the art direction is pretty good too.
The special effects, while great at times (specially with the animals, Aslan in particular rules), sucks at others like with the sledges. Very disappointing compared with the excellent work ILM did with War of the Worlds this year (there's a little WETA and KNB here too but I'm blaming ILM). The movie is really long at two and a half hours, but it is extremely well paced to me it felt like it was less than two hours.
Overall, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is for kids, little ones, and they will be entertained by it, but they'll be the only ones. Now that I've thought about it, Narnia is ok, but definitely no Middle Earth, no Oz, not even Fantasia.