Tuesday, 20 December 2005

Arts

Film: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

[Riverside Theatre]

You know how in some James Bond films you can tell the goodies from the baddies by looking at what they're wearing? Bond and his compatriots are always neatly dressed in suits; his nemesis has less refined style and is surrounded by people in combats. This makes Bond an ideal Christmas film - you can nip out to prod the turkey and no matter how much of the film you've missed you'll always be able to figure out what's going on by looking at the actors' clothes.

Something similar is going on with Narnia. Whenever something good is happening a sumptuous sunset shines on the cast. Conversely at every moment of danger they are bathed in blue. It's a handy disambiguation device but it began to annoy me intensely.

That's pretty much the only complaint I have with the film. Narnia will always be an interesting story and this is a great adaptation. Best of all are the visual effects - we've come so far it's getting hard to spot the computer-generated animals from the real ones.

Posted by pab at 16:46 | Comments will be back later in the year. Please email me instead!