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Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, The
Buena Vista Pictures

Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, The reviews
Critic Score
Metascore: 75 Metascore out of 100
User Score  
5.0 out of 10
based on 39 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
based on 468 votes
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Rate this movie

MPAA RATING: PG for battle sequences and frightening moments

Starring Georgie Henley, Skandar Keynes, William Moseley, Anna Popplewell, Tilda Swinton, James McAvoy, Jim Broadbent, and Kiran Shah

C.S. Lewis' timeless adventure follows the exploits of the four Pevensie siblings -- Lucy, Edmund, Susan and Peter -- in World War II England who enter the world of Narnia through a magical wardrobe while playing a game of hide-and-seek in the rural country home of an elderly professor. Once there, the children discover a charming, peaceful land inhabited by talking beasts, dwarfs, fauns, centaurs and giants that has become a world cursed to eternal winter by the evil White Witch, Jadis. Under the guidance of a noble and mystical ruler, the lion Aslan, the children fight to overcome the White Witch's powerful hold over Narnia in a spectacular climactic battle that will free Narnia from Jadis' icy spell forever. (Walt Disney Pictures / Walden Media)


GENRE(S): Action  |  Adventure  |  Drama  |  Family/Kids  |  Fantasy  
WRITTEN BY: Ann Peacock
Andrew Adamson
Christopher Markus & Stephen McFeely
C.S. Lewis (novel)
 
DIRECTED BY: Andrew Adamson  
RELEASE DATE: DVD: April 4, 2006 
Theatrical: December 9, 2005 
RUNNING TIME: 140 minutes, Color 
ORIGIN: USA 

Also known as "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe"

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100
New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman
A generation-spanning journey that feels both comfortingly familiar and excitingly original.
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100
Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow
Plunges into an imaginative landscape as large as all creation - and never slackens its barreling pace or shrinks its panoramic scope.
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100
San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle
A movie of intelligence and power, of beauty, universality and largeness of spirit.
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100
The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen
The picture goes exactly where the prose does, enticing all of us, kids and adults and atheists and believers alike, down below the brittle surface of our cold logic and into a richer world of imaginative wonder.
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91
Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer
Spiritual redemption is a big theme of Narnia, but on a purely entertainment level, the movie also goes a long way in redeeming the current sad state of children's fantasy filmmaking.
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90
Dallas Observer Luke Y. Thompson
If you're a fan of C.S. Lewis' Narnia books, all you need to know is this: Disney has done right by The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. It's impossible to imagine it done much better, in fact.
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90
LA Weekly Ella Taylor
By staying focused on the children -- frightened evacuees from the London Blitz whose parallel war in Narnia both taps into and finally quiets their unspoken terrors -- Adamson keeps faith with the humanity of Lewsis' tale.
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90
The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt
What is lightly sketched in the novel, where much is left to the imagination, blossoms into full-blown, richly detailed life in the movie.
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90
Village Voice J. Hoberman
Robust, engrossing, and surprisingly restrained in saving most of its effects for the grand finale, the first Chronicles of Narnia installment eschews Harry Potter's satanic subtext and "The Lord of the Rings'" Wagnerian cosmology. It may be as close to adult-friendly kid fare as Hollywood will ever get.
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90
Los Angeles Times Carina Chocano
What's best about it is that it seems real by the logic of childhood - it looks as things SHOULD look, if kids had it their way.
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90
Slate David Edelstein
An entertaining, emotional, and surprisingly intimate movie--an epic saga of fauns and talking (Cockney) beavers and evil sorceresses and triumphal resurrections and massive, sweeping battles that nonetheless feels … small.
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90
Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek
There's nothing too clean or too overbright about it. It's magic, but not the loud, shiny kind: It has the texture of worn velvet, or a painstakingly hand-knit sweater stored away for years in tissue paper.
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90
Washington Post Stephen Hunter
Well told, handsome, stirring and loads of fun.
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80
The New York Times Dana Stevens
The next two hours might not have quite delivered on that initial promise of wonder - we grown-ups, being heavy, are not so easily swept away by visual tricks - except when I looked away from the screen at the faces of breathless and wide-eyed children, my own among them, for whom the whole experience was new, strange, disturbing and delightful.
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80
Newsweek David Ansen
Narnia, brightly lit and kid-friendly, has an appealingly old-fashioned feel to it. Adamson, codirector of "Shrek," wisely doesn't try to hip-ify the tale, leaving its curious blend of medieval pageantry, Christian fable and children's bedtime story intact.
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80
The Onion (A.V. Club) Tasha Robinson
Generations of readers have found The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe to be a gripping adventure that reaches well beyond its religious underpinnings, and this robust version respects both aspects and finds the same winning balance of excitement and meaning.
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80
Variety Todd McCarthy
An array of supporting craftspeople pull the viewer into a credible alternative world, even if the film itself is more prosaic than inspiring.
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75
Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman
The movie, for all its half-baked visual marvels, remains remarkably faithful to Lewis' story, and the innocence of his passion begins to shine through. It's there, most spectacularly, in Aslan, the lion-king messiah.
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75
Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman
A loving interpretation of C.S. Lewis's beloved parable for children, and it's almost perfect in every detail. Yet there's the one difficulty: It's almost perfect in every detail, fully realized in too few.
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75
ReelViews James Berardinelli
On balance, more of the movie works than doesn't, but this isn't 140 minutes of unqualified successes.
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75
Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
This is a film situated precisely on the dividing line between traditional family entertainment and the newer action-oriented family films. It is charming and scary in about equal measure, and confident for the first two acts that it can be wonderful without having to hammer us into enjoying it, or else. Then it starts hammering.
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75
Boston Globe Ty Burr
A gracefully subtle metaphor about life's Deep Magic has become a war film; what was a one-chapter battle toward the end of the book is now a ripsnorting Armageddon that looks like something Hieronymus Bosch might dream up after a heavy meal.
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75
USA Today Claudia Puig
An engaging and exciting family film that at times feels a bit like "The Lord of the Rings Jr."
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75
Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold
Working for the first time in live action, under the constraints of a classic novel, he (Andrew Adamson) proves himself to be a capable visual storyteller but no Peter Jackson.
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75
TV Guide Maitland McDonagh
The extensive CGI work is well used and the children are exceptionally well cast, especially the girls.
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70
Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern
That's not to say that this first visit to a live-action Narnia on screen isn't enjoyable, or promising for the future of what will surely be a successful franchise. But there's not a lot of humor along the way, and the epic struggle between good and evil plays out in battles more impressive than thrilling.
70
Chicago Reader J.R. Jones
The Christian themes of forgiveness and sacrifice are tastefully conveyed, and the opening sequence of Nazi bombs falling on London, an event only alluded to in the book, helps dramatize Lewis's fascination with power.
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63
Miami Herald Connie Ogle
There's little warmth or depth to the characters who, for the most part, trudge through the film with little wonder at the magical journey they're making.
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63
Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea
The menagerie of mythological beasties in Narnia don't seem quite genuinely, three-dimensionally real.
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63
New York Post Lou Lumenick
Overlong, poorly paced and woodenly acted film.
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63
Rolling Stone Peter Travers
This PG-rated movie feels safe and constricted in a way the story never does on the page. It leaves out the deep magic of a good movie, or a good sermon: the feeling that something vital is at stake.
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60
Empire Ian Freer
It's a more dynamic adventure than Potter IV but lacks the majesty and richness of LOTR. Still, it's an enjoyable adaptation and good enough for us to welcome this new franchise.
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60
Film Threat Pete Vonder Haar
Younger children getting in on the ground floor of fantasy will enjoy the film.
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58
Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy
Though it's handsomely made and peppered with seamlessly achieved visual glories, Narnia is ineptly acted, crudely staged and burdened with a score that only a masochist could love.
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50
Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips
The problem with The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is this: The closer the many-hands screenplay gets to the Christ-like sufferings and resurrection of Lord Aslan, the lion (voiced by Liam Neeson), the more conflicted the filmmakers' efforts become.
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50
The New Yorker Anthony Lane
The problem with any allegorical plan, Christian or otherwise, is not its ideological content but the blockish threat that it poses to the flow of a story.
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40
Time Richard Corliss
Disney is trying to lure the disparate audiences of "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" (kids) and "The Passion of the Christ" (Evangelicals). But on either level, Narnia fails. There's no fire, no passion and not much fun.
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40
Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov
Narnia is nearly saved by those immensely likable and altogether stiff-upper-lippy Pevensie kids.
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38
Premiere Peter Debruge
The movie is a leaden, slow-moving beast.
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What Our Users Said

Vote Now!The average user rating for this movie is 5.0 (out of 10) based on 468 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Christos M gave it a6:
If someone can ignore the dangerous political messages that linger under Lewis's writting,will enjoy Tilda Swinton's excellently acted Witch! What a great actress she is!And the visuals off course are absolutely satisfying!

Sam S gave it a10:
A fantastic film with great energy and heart. One of my all-time favorites, also featuring a great soundtrack with an awesome musical score and wonderful songs to finish your journey during the closing credits.

Danielle gave it a6:
I'd rather watch epic movie. the parody captured my attention, this bored me to tears when my best friend forced me to endure the painstaking 2 hours 20 minute of fantasy. I'm a teenage girl, I don't want to see a kiddy fantasy story with not an ounce of humor or romance in it.I can find homor in Titanic. The battle seen wasn't frightening even

Kate K gave it an8:
This movie is pretty good! I like the plot and the characters but I must admit this isn't my fave movie.

Woarkie A gave it a10:
As in Lewis' classic, little time is wasted getting our youthful characters into the incredible fantastic adventure. Exquisite production design and an impassioned creative vision by all those involved.

Darrel O gave it an8:
I bought the movie for my kids, and enjoyed it quite a bit. Yeah, there are some things in the graphics that could be better, but I think it has a good message and it's very watchable.

David K gave it a9:
Great movie that stayed true to the great the author's writings. My children watch it over & over (although we jump past the stone table scene). Excited to see Prince Caspian!

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