The Lion, the Witch, and the Giant Gorilla
This weekend, my goal was to watch 2 movies: Narnia and Kong. I expected to love Narnia and think Kong was so-so.
In reality, the opposite was true. Narnia left me unsatisfied, while Kong blew me the fuck away.
I won’t say I didn’t like The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. I did. I won’t even say it wasn’t in keeping with CS Lewis’ vision. For the most part I think it was, with a couple of minor exceptions I will note.
But it was… dull. Surprisingly so, for something with such a huge budget and incredible effects/props/wardrobe. Even the actors were all great. And the cinematography. And the direction.
And yet, I was bored a lot. It’s hard to understand why, but I was. I can watch cute kids with British accents have adventures all day, but I expected to be on the edge of my seat more, and that never happened except towards the end when I was shifting around trying to stay awake. Not to say that the movie was THAT boring, but we went to a late show, and I had done a fair amount of eating & drinking beforehand.
After meeting my friend Neil in a bar for a glass of scotch and a beer chaser, we went out for a big Peruvian dinner with Dani’s parents, where I downed a Pisco Sour and something in the vicinity of 3 glasses of red sangria. Duck skewers for an appetizer (dee-fucking-licious!) and strip steak entree (magnifique!). By the time we got to the theater for the 10:10 show, I wasn’t drunk by any means, but I was definitely sated and mellow. That’s fine if you’re going to see an exciting movie, which I thought I was, but it turned out not to be so.
Lewis’ work was never The Lord of the Rings (hereafter referred to as “LotR”… which is kind of like Lotor, the big villain on Voltron, but I digress and you’re not old enough to remember that).
Both Tolkien and Lewis have the same… Britishness about them, but The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (hereafter “TLtW&tW”) and LotR are very different books. LotR is an allegory about war, with a little religious allegory thrown in. TLtW&tW is an allegory about religion with a little war allegory thrown in.
Anyway, Disney, as they are wont to do, managed to excise what little blood and harshness there was in TLtW&tW, in an attempt to make it kid-friendly. I think this does a disservice to kids everywhere. Lewis (I keep wanting to write “Carroll”, because I always mix up CS Lewis and Lewis Carroll, even though they are VERY different) wrote TLtW&tW to include a lot of lessons about suffering and redemption that lose their power when you water down the fighting. His later works, like “The Problem of Pain” also focus not on ignoring the pain in the world, but accepting it as part of God’s plan.
Disney would rather just ignore it.
Cases in point:
1) Peter is a wuss in this movie. He’s got a sword, but he looks apt to piss himself every time he draws it, and even when he’s finally forced into his first fight, they use that same, tired old “fell back with the sword up and the enemy impaled himself on it” trick. God, I hate that device. It doesn’t absolve the victor of killing, it just robs them of their right to claim that the victory was deserved. It’s also bullshit. You don’t find a lot of enemies so willing to fall on your sword in real life.
I checked the book, and Peter actually fights the wolf there, after Aslan practically orders it. Aslan knows Peter needs his cherry popped now, because there is killing aplenty to come. He doesn’t fight well, but at least it’s a fair kill in the book. Aslan makes a point of commenting on the blood on Peter’s sword in the book, too, but there is no blood in Disney movies.
2) Likewise, the torture of Aslan before he is killed is horrifying in the book, and even in the 70’s cartoon version. In the movie, it was eh. This is the PASSION, people! You don’t need to go all Gibson, but breathe some life into it!
3) Even in the big battle scene, there is no real blood. It makes war seem safe and glorious. Is that a better message to children than making it horrible? I don’t think so. I don’t want a generation growing up naive to the realities of war. Bad enough we have a president like that.
So I left Narnia unsatisfied, and then went on to see Kong on Saturday.
King Kong… was one of the best movies I have seen in a long, long, looong time. I don’t have any nits to pick. I was on the edge of my seat the whole time. Skull Island was jaw-droppingly awesome.
I didn’t understand why Peter Jackson was wasting his time on a movie that’s already been re-made, but I see it now. Jackson, you’re the shit.
Also watched Sky High on DVD this weekend. Not so good. Lynda Cater’s MiLFilicious cameo amounted to about 2 minutes of screen time, and that was not enough by any means. Apart from that… it was a good idea. Harry Potter / Hogwarts for superheroes. I get it. Could have been great, but the acting and writing were terrible, and the budget wasn’t shit. It was more of a direct-to-video special than it was a movie worthy of theatrical release. I could see you liking it if you were a kid with a narrow frame of reference, but believe me, there’s better ways to spend your time… like watching X2 for the tenth time.