THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE (2005)

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PREFACE: Could not bring ourselves to finish this. I think maybe it was around fifty minutes in.

A sudden thought hit me recently--when was the last time anyone in my life had ever, in any way shape or form, brought up the CHRONICLES OF NARNIA? A piece of fanart, a meme, a write up--anything at all? And I couldn't date the concept at all--i think if you brought this movie up to most people, they'd either go "Oh, i think i remember seeing that when i was younger," or, more likely, "The Chronicles of What?". And that's bonkers considering all three of these chronicles were box office success, this one in particular making four times its budget of one hundred and eighty million dollars. I mean, holy shit, that's a lot of asses in seats... So why the hell doesn't anyone remember it?

Despite bolstering a runtime just over two full hours, it doesn't take more than twenty minutes to realize just exactly why THE LION, THE WITCH & THE WARDROBE failed to make any lasting cultural impact whatsoever: every single line, uttered by every single character, is virtually worthless.

There are four main characters: all children. They have worse than zero personality--two of the four may as well be the exact same character. Our cast is A) responsible older male, B) responsible older female, C) young girl, and D) asshole. Now, the asshole's funny, but the rest of the actors serve as little more than disposable self inserts for viewers, allowing your average skill-less, trait-less to project themselves onto whichever gender or age they identify with. Because it is an isekai, I guess, and one set in a really boring fucking world where it feels as if CS Lewis is poorly making shit up as he goes along, staircasing the plot forward in a world that's smothered in rails. Compare to, shit, LORD OF THE RINGS? Those movies establish their Middle Earth. In Narnia, i barely have a grasp what the fuck it even is. And okay, we've got the goat guy... talking beavers... alright, a bunch of animals... some orc looking dude? Christ the Lion? I suppose it is fantastical but the bare minimum, like just enough to check a box but not enough to actually stir anyone's imagination.

You know what the worst part is? The film pulls that whole lit darkness shit where night time is just really dark blue and everyone can see perfectly--absolutely no use of lighting or darks allowed (apropos of nothing: black people, too).