The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE (2005)
A well made and enjoyable adaptation of C.S. Lewis' classic book. The film is essentially a scene-for-scene recreation of the book, though that's not to say that it was simply a slavish translation of the novel; there were certainly many things that were different, but all in all it was really good in many of the same ways that the book was really good. It helps that the film was really well made and well acted. All four of the kids were pretty much perfect in their roles, and Tilda Swinton was appropriately sinister as the White Witch. And Andrew Adamson's direction was quite good, giving the movie an epic feel without overwhelming the viewer with sweeping shots of epic landscapes (the Lord of the Rings trilogy comes to mind). As well, the requisite battle scene was really well done, eschewing the old shakey-cam/quick-cut stand-by in favour of shots that actually last longer than a second (again, the Lord of the Rings trilogy comes to mind). Though at well over two hours the film felt a tad long at times, that's a relatively minor complaint. ***1/2