Caution: Singularity Ahead [DEFUNCT]

Speed Racer Saw it in IMAX. Harmless family fantasy fare. We went in expecting an eye-candy homage to the cartoon and weren't disappointed. I can't imagine ever watching it again, but it entertained us. The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian My bar: "Was it good enough that they'll make Voyage of the Dawn Treader ?" Apparently, yes - $96M so far. Yay. The actual plot of the book itself is rather short, and unlike LWW or VDT focuses on atmosphere, character development, and parable. (In the lovely form of "If your friends didn't have the faith to jump off a bridge, why should that stop you?") It can be summed up as "the Pevensies appear in Narnia, note that it has aged a thousand years, meet a dwarf who provides details in flashback, and trump across the world being teased by Aslan. The boys arrive in time to rescue Caspian from some nasties in a cave, then defeat his uncle in single combat, while Aslan and the girls wake up the pagan...

Anything I say about Andrew Rilstone will come out sounding like a lame attempt to emulate his biting wit. His reviews of Jackson's Lord of the Rings films a few years back show that he understands the Deep Magic (of film adaptations, fanboys and casual observers, and crufty old English professors), so I've been eagerly awaiting his thoughts on LWW. So just go read it.  The Life and Opinions of Andrew Rilstone: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

Pretty good. If you can make it through the first half, the second half makes up for it. I enjoyed it a lot, and hopefully they'll follow on with Prince Caspian and Voyage of the Dawn Treader . Adapting the others will be a tremendous challenge. This one was adapted spectacularly well. I have two major criticisms of the film. First, the first half of the film (through the Father Christmas scene), the directing, acting, and cinematography is emotionless. At no point does the White Witch come across as sinister, vile, or oppressive. In the inevitable comparison to Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings , Jackson's characters were a little bit over the top. In this adaptation, the characters weren't even at base camp yet. Jadis should have terrified us at least as much as the Nazgul did in Fellowship ; Maugrim's pack are turned into buffoons. This all turns around halfway through, but that just makes the film feel uneven. Second, the film was simply too short. One of m...