The acting and costumes are wonderful, and so are the special effects.
Audio:
The English PCM 5.1 uncompressed (48kHz/16-bit) soundtrack is also awesome. You might wonder why, with a mega-title like this, they didn't go with a 24-bit transfer, and I can't begin to answer that. I can only tell you that I had no complaints about the soundtrack, which feels as dynamic as any I've heard. There's great (and natural) use of the effects speakers, and as with the best audio tracks the spread is wide enough to fill the room with sound. Additional audio options are English, French, and Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1, with subtitles in English SDH, French, and Spanish.
Extras:
All the bonus features from the Special Two-Disc Collector's Edition DVD are here, plus a Blu-ray exclusive game that's more involved than the usual disc fare.
On one commentary, the four child actors romp with the director, while Adamson is joined by his producer and production designer on the other. The kids are fun to listen to--especially the say-anything Henley, who challenges the director on a number of scenes, insisting he shouldn't have cut this one or that one. "Maybe we'll put them in the extended cut," he says. (There are no deleted scenes included here--only a short okay blooper reel.) Both commentaries are excellent, though, with one covering the technical bases and the other the human side of filming. The same trivia track from the DVD is here, and Lewis's stepson provided the pop-up trivia notes, which can be watched with one of the audio commentaries.
A second disc offers seven long bonus features on the making of Narnia--a low-key, fly-on-the-wall series that combines talking heads with behind-the-scenes snippets--and storybook style compendiums of the places and faces of Narnia. It's fun to watch such things as Moseley wielding a sword against tennis balls on strings that are supposed to be snarling wolves. The features are: "Chronicles of a Director," "The Children's Magical Journey," "Evolution of an Epic," "From One Man's Mind," "Cinematic Storytellers," "Creating Creatures," and "Anatomy of a Scene: The Melting River." In a section on "Creatures, Lands & Legends" we get more static entries which can be a little confusing. If you don't know the original books, you're left wondering if these storybook-style presentations are Lewis's words or if they're made especially for the DVD. Same with the graphics, some of which look old enough to be original, but you never know. It's hard to appreciate something when you have no idea what you're looking at. That's really my only complaint about the bonus features. Otherwise, it's a nice bundle. We're told that there were over 1600 special effects shots for this film, and the bonus features go a long way toward making you appreciate everyone's efforts and achievements.
As for the game, I plead guilty to just checking it out to see the basic point, the level of difficulty/complexity, and the apparent duration of the game. It takes a long introduction with gobs of instructions before you choose one of two fighters which, as in the game Heroscape, has a corresponding card. You basically navigate your fighter through Narnia, adding allies, waging war against the enemy, gathering tokens, etc. It's a full-blown fantasy game that should appeal to game lovers because it looks as if you could easily play this thing for as long as my son spends on his Nintendo.
Bottom Line:
There may not be enough battles to satisfy older children, and what symbolism there is seems as elusive as anything you'd get from Nathaniel Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter. But the acting and costumes are wonderful, and so are the special effects. The centaurs and fauns look as authentic as the humans, and I've never seen such a realistic CGI lion. Watch the mouth move when he talks and you can't help but marvel! Same with Tumnus, when he stomps his little hoofed feet. "The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe" is a fine first installment of Lewis's fantasies. Rated PG for battle sequences and frightening moments, "The Chronicles of Narnia" really has far less violence than "The Lord of the Rings" films, and children as young as six will probably be okay to watch. Most of the killing is "freezing" (like the old "Batman" series) which can be undone, and the big battle scene doesn't revel in violence the way Jackson's film does. It blurs it.
The English PCM 5.1 uncompressed (48kHz/16-bit) soundtrack is also awesome. You might wonder why, with a mega-title like this, they didn't go with a 24-bit transfer, and I can't begin to answer that. I can only tell you that I had no complaints about the soundtrack, which feels as dynamic as any I've heard. There's great (and natural) use of the effects speakers, and as with the best audio tracks the spread is wide enough to fill the room with sound. Additional audio options are English, French, and Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1, with subtitles in English SDH, French, and Spanish.
Extras:
All the bonus features from the Special Two-Disc Collector's Edition DVD are here, plus a Blu-ray exclusive game that's more involved than the usual disc fare.
On one commentary, the four child actors romp with the director, while Adamson is joined by his producer and production designer on the other. The kids are fun to listen to--especially the say-anything Henley, who challenges the director on a number of scenes, insisting he shouldn't have cut this one or that one. "Maybe we'll put them in the extended cut," he says. (There are no deleted scenes included here--only a short okay blooper reel.) Both commentaries are excellent, though, with one covering the technical bases and the other the human side of filming. The same trivia track from the DVD is here, and Lewis's stepson provided the pop-up trivia notes, which can be watched with one of the audio commentaries.
A second disc offers seven long bonus features on the making of Narnia--a low-key, fly-on-the-wall series that combines talking heads with behind-the-scenes snippets--and storybook style compendiums of the places and faces of Narnia. It's fun to watch such things as Moseley wielding a sword against tennis balls on strings that are supposed to be snarling wolves. The features are: "Chronicles of a Director," "The Children's Magical Journey," "Evolution of an Epic," "From One Man's Mind," "Cinematic Storytellers," "Creating Creatures," and "Anatomy of a Scene: The Melting River." In a section on "Creatures, Lands & Legends" we get more static entries which can be a little confusing. If you don't know the original books, you're left wondering if these storybook-style presentations are Lewis's words or if they're made especially for the DVD. Same with the graphics, some of which look old enough to be original, but you never know. It's hard to appreciate something when you have no idea what you're looking at. That's really my only complaint about the bonus features. Otherwise, it's a nice bundle. We're told that there were over 1600 special effects shots for this film, and the bonus features go a long way toward making you appreciate everyone's efforts and achievements.
As for the game, I plead guilty to just checking it out to see the basic point, the level of difficulty/complexity, and the apparent duration of the game. It takes a long introduction with gobs of instructions before you choose one of two fighters which, as in the game Heroscape, has a corresponding card. You basically navigate your fighter through Narnia, adding allies, waging war against the enemy, gathering tokens, etc. It's a full-blown fantasy game that should appeal to game lovers because it looks as if you could easily play this thing for as long as my son spends on his Nintendo.
Bottom Line:
There may not be enough battles to satisfy older children, and what symbolism there is seems as elusive as anything you'd get from Nathaniel Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter. But the acting and costumes are wonderful, and so are the special effects. The centaurs and fauns look as authentic as the humans, and I've never seen such a realistic CGI lion. Watch the mouth move when he talks and you can't help but marvel! Same with Tumnus, when he stomps his little hoofed feet. "The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe" is a fine first installment of Lewis's fantasies. Rated PG for battle sequences and frightening moments, "The Chronicles of Narnia" really has far less violence than "The Lord of the Rings" films, and children as young as six will probably be okay to watch. Most of the killing is "freezing" (like the old "Batman" series) which can be undone, and the big battle scene doesn't revel in violence the way Jackson's film does. It blurs it.
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[release]23319[/release]