Suspend your disbelief. Enter the wardrobe.

I remember reading the Chronicles of Narnia when I was little, and I was captivated by C.S. Lewis’ storytelling. I will never forget the sheer escapism as I felt myself walking past the fur coats and wandering into a world populated by griffins, centaurs and talking beavers. Watching the recent movie version of the tale, I was reminded of the accompanying television program from years past. I remember being glued to the boob tube to see where Lucy, Susan, Peter and Edmund found themselves next.

As I sat in the theatre, I felt myself a child again drawn into such a fantastical world, so much so that I came to overlook the pitfalls of The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, and there are definitely a few missing pieces to an otherwise pretty good film. Being a non-religious person myself, my stomach twisted just a little with Aslan the Lion’s obvious Jesus-ish moments. C’mon now, the whole personal humiliation and sacrifice in the name of love and a greater good… it’s been done, though it is great to hear Qui-Gon Jinn (Liam Neeson) resurrected as a talking lion.

All the usual stereotypes of these types of movies also hold true: The youngest girl, Lucy (played by the adorable Georgie Henley), is the first one to discover the magical world of Narnia; The epic battle scene at the end is filled with many a slow-motion running sequence; The “good guys