Unlike The Lord of the Rings, I have much fonder memories of C.S. Lewis' The Chronicle's of Narnia from my childhood, so I couldn't help but be very curious as to how my imagined Narnia would compare with director Andrew Adamson's adaptation The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. For the most part, I have to admit, I enjoyed my cinematic visit to a land of witches, warriors and a rather large helping of Englishness. Visually, Narnia is the same combination of amazing landscapes drawn from New Zealand, via the wizardry of digital effects, and is definitely worthy of the landscape of the imagination. The citizens of Narnia are similarly imagined in all their splendor, with Weta Workshop and Weta Digital doing an amazing job bringing everyone from Mr Tumnus and Aslan to the Minotaurs and Centaurs to believable life. The Centaurs, who I was most worried would look like CGI, were among the most convincing characters of all and Mr Tumnus is a wonderful synergy of acting and digital effects, bring a convincing personality to those fawn legs of his!

The strength of Narnia, however, like Lord of the Rings, is in the casting. Everyone is well chosen and Tilda Swinton definitely deserves an Oscar nomination for her take on the White Witch. Swinton is chilling, graceful and captures the anger and envy of her character exactly as I would have imagined in my younger days. While the first words from Aslan--voiced by Liam Neeson--did sound a little like the wisdom of one Qui-Gon Jinn, he quickly owned the voice and gave a regal vocal performance. Also inspired was the double act of Ray Winstone and Dawn French as Mr and Mrs Beaver, who brought both comic timing and heart to their roles. The real stars, though, are definitely Georgie Henley, Skandar Keynes, William Moseley and Anna Popplewell as Lucy, Edmund, Peter and Susan respectively. These young actors all give exemplary performances, especially young Georgie Henley whose take on Lucy brings so much heart to her role, while not falling into the too-wise-for-their-age syndrome that so many young actors give in to. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is, after all, Lucy's story and Henley's performance never lets you forget the context of World War Two that surrounds the magical escape Narnia provides.