Narnia
It's very rare I bring the family to the movies -- for a family of five, it's an expensive proposition. at $6.50 per ticket for my three kids and $9.25 each for Bonnie and me, plus a bucket of popcorn and drinks, I'm out $60 by the time I'm through. Compared to $15 or $20 for a DVD, it's just not worth it most of the time.
So it has to be a really special movie to get us all to the theater, especially, given my pathological loathing of crowds, on opening weekend -- and so it was for The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, which we took the kids to see last night.
As it turned out, there was a perfect confluence of events to make it happen. On Friday New England got belted with its first serious snowstorm. And while the Cape didn't get a lot of snow, we were pummelled with hours of high winds -- enough that the electricity in our neighborhood got knocked out from the middle of the afternoon straight through the middle of the evening.
Given that we had no heat and no way to prepare dinner, it only made sense to go out someplace warm and lit, so Bonnie and I made our way (through miles of traffic) to the local mall to have dinner and catch a film. The weather kept the crowds away.
Best of all, since it was opening night, they had games and activities for the kids, and each of them won a prize -- Emme got a poster, Bob got a CD of the film's soundtrack, and James got a Narnia T-shirt.
As it turns out, Andrew Adamson did a masterful job of bringing this movie to the big screen. And the actors who played the Pevensie children all did fantastic work. The special effects work was superlative -- there was hardly an unbelievable or unrealistic moment on screen, which is exceptional when you consider the film is filled with fawns, talking lions, centaurs, griffins and all other manners of mythical creatures.
Before it opened, a huge amount has been made about how Narnia is supposed to appeal to Christian movie goers. If you were concerned about it, don't worry too much -- ultimately, the story of the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is about sacrifice and forgiveness, especially within the context of the family unit. Christian values, to be sure, but hardly unique to Christianity -- and ample fodder for an adventure film.