Disappointed by Narnia

I have to admit, I was a bit disappointed by the Disney version of The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. I guess it's cause I was spoiled by the high quality of The Lord of the Rings. Maybe also because the book was so fresh in my mind--it made all of the changes stand out glaringly. I had high hopes after all of the excellent previews and after hearing rave reviews of the movie. But when it came to actually seeing it, the only thing I really liked better about the movie than the book was the opening scene where the children are at home in London and have to be sent away to the countryside to escape the air raids. I felt like that was an excellent move as it put the whole story in context. However shortly after the children arrive at Professor Kirke's home the bottom drops out of the story.

In the book, the children were all well fairly well-mannered. Edmund was "beastly" at times, but otherwise they got along. I saw nothing wrong with the way the children found the wardrobe in the book, why did the director feel it necessary to change it? One of the main things that bothered me was when Peter killed the wolf. In the book it was a struggle, and ended up being a sort of coming-of-age, heroic thing for Peter. The movie made it almost accidental...the wolf fell onto Peter's sword while Peter was still struggling with whether or not he could do it. The acting was ok at best. I thought the children were too old for their characters. Aslan was neither majestic nor terrifying....and though they did say "he's not a tame lion", it felt as though he was tame. The Witch did a pretty good job. Mr. Tumnus also did a good job of his character.

I know its not completely fair to compare TLWW with TLOR, Lewis did write a much shorter book, and therefore there wasn't as much to work with, but I was hoping that'd mean they wouldn't have to change the storyline as much since they wouldn't have to cut huge portions out, and they'd be able to use some imagination in creating the fantastical-world of Narnia.

I suppose if it'd been years since I'd read the book I would have enjoyed it more, but reading the Tolkein books made me enjoy Peter Jackson's rendition even more. But I can't see this movie inspiring people of all ages to read the book as TLOR did. Overall, it was an ok movie, but not what I'd consider great. I probably won't bother watching it again. It definitely didn't have the epic feel I had hoped for.