The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe (and another film)
Last night I saw the new Narnia film for the first time. I’d wanted to see it in the cinema, but for some reason never managed it. The night I could have gone with my family, I had a gig that clashed. They had come home and raved about it, so I wanted to see it more, but still couldn’t manage it. The DVD was released just before I came to Japan, and I was too busy to rent it. Luckily, Bethany (eldest daughter of my hosts) had borrowed it and wanted to watch it, so we set up the church projector and my laptop and watched it on Sunday evening. (As a result, my laptop is currently set to Region 1. Any ways to get round regional encoding on a DVD would be very useful…)
The film is generally very good. The acting is all very good, though some of the CGI animation left a bit to be desired, I felt. Aslan, for example, looked definitely computer animated rather than a real lion. Still, that was me being critical – it doesn’t matter so much because it’s still reasonable.
The film seemed to have a good balance of the serious and amusing moments. The action scenes not featured in the book worked very well, and didn’t feel like taking a liberty with the original. I also liked the costumes and a lot of the different creatures. Some of them just looked awkward and badly animated though. (Actually, “badly” is too strong a word. Not brillianty animated, then.)
It was probably about as good as I thought it would be, neither exceeding expectations nor disappointing. What did exceed my expectations though was the film “Sky High”, which was far better than I expected of a Disney family comedy. In a different way to the Incredibles, Sky High managed to distort superhero conventions to create a different take on the whole concept, and did it well. It’s also a pretty good take on American high schools. It’s not as good as the Incredibles at first viewing, but I get the feeling there were lots of little jokes that I missed (as I remember some little unobvious jokes that I managed to catch, and there must be more).
I was surprised to enjoy it so much, and while it won’t win any awards it’s by no means a waste of time. I’d say it’s definitely worth seeing, and I will probably see it again.
It’s our plan to see the Da Vinci Code on Monday with some Japanese friends, which shall be interesting. I will post a report if we do.
Matthew @ 11:50, May 18, 2006 to Reviews | Comments (4)
Comments:
Mark
VLC plays everything, in any region, ever. Not great UI, but it works. You can also always rip the DVD to your computer as region free
Comment added at 19:01, May 18, 2006
Matthew
Mm, Handbrake didn’t want to seem to rip Narnia though. And due to content negotiation on the VLC website, I can only download the Japanese language version from here. (It seriously needs a better icon though. What’s with the traffic cone?)
Maybe I’ll try Mac The Ripper.
Comment added at 01:37, May 19, 2006
Rory
VLC is my media player of choice – I didn’t know it was released on the Mac! I’m excited now.
Sky High was good? Seriously? I remember seeing the trailer and thought it looked like a mixture between The Incredibles and Agent Cody Banks.
All the reviews I’ve seen say The Da Vinci Code is a stinker.
Comment added at 08:59, May 19, 2006
Matthew
Mm, that’s what I’ve heard.
The trailer was what gave me the low expectations, and as I say I was pleasantly surprised. I mean, I’m not raving about it and saying everyone should see it, but I think it probably is worth seeing if you have the chance.
Comment added at 14:54, May 19, 2006
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