A Quick Movie Review - cuz I don't want to write another site about personal injury (why not impersonal injury, I ask you?)

Sunday night I saw The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe with the Kuypster. This is going to be a quick bulleted list of what I liked and didn't like and then a rating.

What I liked:
-The kids were well cast: Lucy and Edmund win for the best acting of the four. Peter and Susan were great as well, but these two were great.



-Tilda Swinton kicked ass as the White Witch. She was creepily sweet to Edmund and completely composed and calm as she was trying to kill Peter in the battle.



-The battle rocked - awesome sword work by WW.
-The digital figures - particularly the beavers were awesome. Aslan was pretty good too.
-The setting looked appropriately Narnian. WW's castle was like this frozen jade fortress.
-The slaying of Aslan was REALLY well done - all the creatures were appropriately creepy.
-Liam Niesson (sp?) did a pretty good job with Aslan's voice.
-All of the transitions from wardrobe to forest and forest to wardrobe (especially at the end) were really great.
-The WW's look and costuming was great.
-There was some great humor.

Things I didn't like:
-A couple of unnecessary changes to the plot (a prison scene with Edmund and Tumnus, and some extra action scenes) took away from scenes that needed more development - particularly Lucy and Tumnus in his house, the scene at the beavers, and the scene where the WW turns the animals at the Christmas banquet to stone.
-While the movie remained very true to the spirit of the book, I felt Lewis' dialog -which I always enjoyed for its unique style - became somewhat affected by more modern colloquialism as well as some pretty syrupy, hit-you-over-the-head-with-the-symbolism lines. Let's just say it got a bit Disneyfied at times.
-The lead wolf in the WW's employ was one of like two characters to have an American accent - his was this tough New York type thing that I found ridiculous.
-While for the most part the film images seemed inspired by the original (and amazing) illustrations,

some of the look of the film itself didn't work for me. I didn't like the look of the tree spirits (which usually were tree blossoms brought together to form some weird looking woman), the centaurs looked like they belonged in a fantasy porno, and the Queen's dwarf didn't do it for me - tho' he gets an awesome death.
-Some of the stuff they were doing with Susan as far as foreshadowing goes for "The Last Battle" was too heavy-handed. That should unfold more slowly, otherwise it's not the surprise in the end that it is in the last book.

Overall: ***1/2 out of 5 Stars

It was a great beginning to what I think is going to be a great series. If anyone else has seen it, I'd love to hear your reviews.