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First off, let me just say that I haven't read the book, although of course I am familiar with the premise (who isn't?). Therefore this will not suffer in my eyes through comparison with the book, but one reason why I've never read it is that the story doesn't really appeal to me. The film then had quite a lot to do to grip me, but the trailers had shown promise. Ultimately, though, despite its best efforts, it didn’t really succeed for me, but that's probably got more to do with the source material than the filmmakers. The story seemed surprisingly thin and overstretched, making the film unexciting and even boring in places. I liked the beginning in the Blitz and was entertained for a while, but even after an hour and a half not much had really happened, other than the kids finding the wardrobe and exploring Narnia a bit. The story lacked an epic scale, as did the geography, making Narnia seem rather small. From a visual perspective, the CGI was uniformly impressive but some of the sets were less so, looking rather fake (particularly the Ice Palace). The only time the film really hit its stride was when the big battle at the end arrived, but I still had a hard time buying these kids as war heroes (one of my beefs with the original story). It's not a complete failure, by any means: for example, the beavers are great characters, Tumnus is very endearingly played, there's some witty dialogue, and most of all Lucy Pevensie is extremely charming. Basically, I think the film was a very safe adaptation. Had it taken a few more risks it might have been better, but I can't see this film being remembered in years to come, unless the Church-going groups make it a huge hit. Honestly I see more Christ parallels in The Matrix.
The summary
It'll probably satisfy younger children and fans of the book, but compared to The Lord of the Rings it's frankly second-rate.
