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So who else blubbed throughout the last two reels of this?

It's a remarkable film - I say remarkable because there's so many missteps and awful judgement calls (crass, often confusing overuse of CGI; maddeningly overemphatic direction; terrible tween-market songs all over the soundtrack; clumsily handled subplots) and yet the movie still works and gets the core of its story totally right. It's a big testament to the acting skills of Josh Hutcherson and AnnaSophia Robb (and Bailee Madison) that it's so gripping and affecting. Scenes where characters have to "make-believe" and "use their imaginations" on-screen (and that's something that happens a lot here) generally make me curl up with embarrassment, but the kids had the knack of keeping it surprisingly funny and charming. I can't go into much more because it'll spoil what will probably become one of the cornerstone traumas in family films. It's a welcome throwback to the days when Disney wasn't remotely afraid to let his young audience's emotions get hauled through the wringer.

Truth be told, there are lots of things wrong with this film, none of which should keep you from seeing it. All the good stuff absorbs the bad and it's the best thing I've seen at the cinema since A Prairie Home Companion.

I haven't been able to watch this yet and I doubt I'll ever be able to - the book really affected me as a kid, and again later on when I had to read it for one of my education classes.

Everyone I've talked to has had nothing but good things to say about this movie and a lot of reviewers are comparing it to the classic Disney live action films of yore, but Disney is being extremely misleading when they make it look like another Chronicles of Narnia. I wonder how many people left the theater feeling completely blindsided by the movie?

patrick wrote:Disney is being extremely misleading when they make it look like another Chronicles of Narnia.

That's the main reason I actually had no interest in seeing this movie.

I didn't like the movie at all, and the way they handled the pivotal plot point was so blasé. The only reason to watch it is AnnaSophia Robb, who is so incredibly cute. She will unfortunately soon enter into that period of transition that all young disney stars go through, and if she can avoid the paths of Lohan, I think she has a really bright future.

Narshty wrote:I can't go into much more because it'll spoil what will probably become one of the cornerstone traumas in family films. It's a welcome throwback to the days when Disney wasn't remotely afraid to let his young audience's emotions get hauled through the wringer.

Is it up there with Macaulay Culkin in My Girl? "There were just too many bees!"

Not nearly as funny, I'm afraid.

I wish that the fantasy elements had been much more subtle, but there was a lot to like about it. I have to echo the praise for the two lead performances. I have been a fan of the book since my fourth-grade teacher (who was just as cool, but not half as hot as Zooey Deschanel) read it to our class. Like Matt, I had been avoiding the film due to the misleading marketing. What looked like a Narnia cash-in turned out to be a charming family film in the classic Disney vein of Old Yeller. With far more fidelity to the source material than I expected, it could have easily taken place in 1977 when the book was written. In fact, I think that its timelessness and lack of pop-culture references were what I liked best about it. Apart from an unfortunate and unnecessary reference to downloading essays off of the Internet, there was nothing to indicate when it was taking place. There was nary a cell phone or computer in sight. If one can overlook the brief (but admittedly tacky and distracting) appearances by the CGI beasties, the film is old-fashioned in the very best sense of the term.