Metacritic reviews

What is lightly sketched in the novel, where much is left to the imagination, blossoms into full-blown, richly detailed life in the movie.

Robust, engrossing, and surprisingly restrained in saving most of its effects for the grand finale, the first Chronicles of Narnia installment eschews Harry Potter's satanic subtext and "The Lord of the Rings'" Wagnerian cosmology. It may be as close to adult-friendly kid fare as Hollywood will ever get.

What's best about it is that it seems real by the logic of childhood - it looks as things SHOULD look, if kids had it their way.

If you're a fan of C.S. Lewis' Narnia books, all you need to know is this: Disney has done right by The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. It's impossible to imagine it done much better, in fact.

An array of supporting craftspeople pull the viewer into a credible alternative world, even if the film itself is more prosaic than inspiring.

Generations of readers have found The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe to be a gripping adventure that reaches well beyond its religious underpinnings, and this robust version respects both aspects and finds the same winning balance of excitement and meaning.

The movie, for all its half-baked visual marvels, remains remarkably faithful to Lewis' story, and the innocence of his passion begins to shine through. It's there, most spectacularly, in Aslan, the lion-king messiah.

It's a more dynamic adventure than Potter IV but lacks the majesty and richness of LOTR. Still, it's an enjoyable adaptation and good enough for us to welcome this new franchise.

The problem with any allegorical plan, Christian or otherwise, is not its ideological content but the blockish threat that it poses to the flow of a story.

The problem with The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is this: The closer the many-hands screenplay gets to the Christ-like sufferings and resurrection of Lord Aslan, the lion (voiced by Liam Neeson), the more conflicted the filmmakers' efforts become.