Watch The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe For Free

The Worst Film Ever

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

When I was in 7th grade, we watched this. I thought it was pretty good. Then, when I watched the new version, I thought that it was very good. Now, about 8 years later, I watched the original version. It is no where near as good as the new version. For one thing, the special effects were horrible. None of the animals looked real. Also, the actors were horrible. The actors also looked like they were all about the same age. In the new version, you can tell easily that they are none the actors are the same age. It's one of those movies that only people who watched in when they were young and have fond memories of it, will like.

It is hard to express just how magical this series seemed when it first aired. It held the nation enthralled.The animation and special effects that some reviewers have condemned as hokey really seemed utterly amazing to a me as a seven year old child. Part of that is obviously my naivety, although I was the target audience so it was fair for the BBC to assume that of the viewers. However special effects at the time were far less advanced and less common than now. The skeletons in Jason and the Argonauts don't rate by today's standards but were pretty amazing at the time and this should be viewed in a similar light.I actually think this is more effective in capturing the spirit of Narnia as a fantasy land if you are prepared to enter into that spirit of fantasy than the more recent big budget film that attempts to leverage in a photo-realism that, I think, didn't quite come off.I should also mention that the acting is really lovely across the board and the witch terrified a generation!This was sort of the Doctor Who of its time: The whole family sat down together to watch it at teatime; We were wowed by the TV budget special effects; The BBC props department had one of its finest hours; and all the kids hid behind the sofa terrified of the witch!

by tradition, most things made in the 80s i've seen have been pretty bad for this thing here bad acting, bad effects and a bad script all combine together to make an OK piece of film let's start with the acting. first of all the children are all completely miscast. Sophie Wilcox is far too old to play Lucy (she was 13/14 at the time and Lucy is meant to be 8 years old) and Richard Dempsey looked way too young (he looked almost younger than Lucy and Edmund). Jonathan Scott and Sophie Cook are passable as the other children. since these guys are children you expect the acting to be a little off but Richard Dempsey is easily the weakest of them. however poor the children might be they are blown out of the water by Barbara Kellerman playing the White Witch. if anyone has heard of the expression ham acting they will agree that she is the walking definition of it in this. not only does she overact to the point of being too bad to be funny she acts like her character has friggin bipolar disorder. the voice of Aslan speaks too slow and isn't nearly ferocious enough for a lion. the man playing Mr Beaver is just terrible too. i even hated him when i saw this as a six year old kid. don't worry, there are good actors in this. The Professor, the dwarf, Mrs MacReady, Mr Tumnus and a handful of extra characters are quite solid in their performances.there are a number of shots you see in this which make you wonder what the editors were smoking when they kept them in. like when Mr Beaver tells them Aslan has come, there is a slow shot which shows all the children looking up at the sky; Mr Beaver laughs at a comment Edmund makes and he turns away and makes an incredibly stupid sulky folded arms look and when the stone table cracks Lucy shouts "they're doing something worse to him" and then she says "come on" but she hops on the spot for a good few seconds before saying this.for effects, well this is the BBC so i'll be generous. they aren't as bad as you think aside from the fact that they have hand drawn animation mixed in with the live action. i guess it sort of works but it just adds to the silliness of the whole thing. of course one thing that CS Lewis himself hated was that all the animals are played by actors in costumes. as a result we have life sized beavers and ridiculous looking wolves. Aslan is played by a puppet and the effect for this is OK but you can still see the creases in the costume. one effect that does work is when Aslan turns the creatures back from stone. another is when they find a giant in the witch's castle, it looks very authentic.the script probably is what makes the acting look worse than it really is. they keep much of the old fashioned dialogue used in the book, perhaps realising too late that it just looks silly and cheesy. it really should have been updated like both the Disney and cartoon versions did. you hear Peter saying expressions like "by golly" and "by Jove" mingled with his high pitched posh voice and it makes you cringe every time.now let's move on to what's good about this series. first of all it is the most faithful of all the adaptations of the books. many scenes are done word for word from the book which can be good or bad, decide for yourself. second, as god awful as the White Witch's acting is, she has an excellent design and looks the part. the costume is very detailed. the battle scene is not as good as the cartoon and Disney versions but its still OK.

I saw this movie when I was in 4th grade. For a 1988 movie, it's more like a 1970 movie, like a "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" type of quality. (MPATHG was GOOD though.) Heres why I was so disappointed in this movie: Our class had just read the book, and was incredibly excited to see what the movie would be like. I expected a movie that really showed the book at its best. What we got was a movie that was not only stupid, but had horrible acting and visuals, and I knew it was an old movie! Before I saw this IMDb page, I thought the movie was made in 1970! The acting was horrible, especially by the character who played Lucy. Not only was she not right for the part, she was WAY too old to be placed as the youngest kid. Almost all of the acting in this sucked, and I expected at least decent acting.The visuals were what I thought were 1970 material, in fact, I don't recall those classic fight "Red Shade" parts in any 1970 movie I have ever seen. I understand it was 1988, but the Lion could have been a BIT better when it came to quality. all the animal parts were poorly done. Most of the scenes looked incredibly poor, like sets even I could make out of household stuff in my house. And Mr and Mrs beaver....taller than a human? Not even close to the pictures in the book.Now you may ask "Why does it get a 3 then?" well, I'll tell you....COMEDY! This movie was so stupid, there are jokes that I have remembered for years. I am in 8th grade now, and me and my friends still mock the classic "Mr. Tumnus, Mr. Tumnus!" line, and the especially mocked Mr. Beaver impression. I give it a 3 for comical purposes.