The director, who also cowrote the screenplay, manages to bring all this to life with a mixture of awe and adventure. What could have been a major disappointment — child performances — turns out to be a plus. The director elicits wonderful, believable performances from the four young actors. Ironically, Tilda Swinton's performance as the White Witch is a bit disappointing. She has her moments (especially the ghoulish sacrifice of Aslan), but her performance is too understated and does not come across as sufficiently menacing to represent the evil that everyone is fighting against. Liam Neeson succeeds in conveying what Lewis calls Aslan's "rich and deep" voice, giving the lion an air of majesty. The voices of Ray Winstone and Dawn French as the stalwart working-class Mr. and Mrs. Beaver are simply a joy.

The computer-generated images used to recreate the beavers, Aslan the great lion, wolves, centaurs, and other weird and wonderful creatures are simply jaw-dropping. Unlike the new Star Wars films where the special effects did not add anything to the film and were simply annoying, the effects here blend in seamlessly with the narrative and the human actors rather than being used to cover up gaping holes in the script and the performances. The climactic battle between the good and evil of Narnia is particularly rousing, with Peter's role as general mirroring that of his father fighting in Nazi-occupied Europe.

Of course, as with any adaptation of a much-loved novel, purists will have their criticisms. The films leaves out seemingly small details — such as Edmund's constant obsession with Turkish Delight after his initial meeting with the White Witch, and how the other children find out that Edmund had lied about his first visit to Narnia — which affect the power of the story and characters. A Hollywood-added action sequence in which the children emerge from near drowning in an ice-cold river as if emerging from a lovely hot bath also undermines the persuasive power of the film. This is not a page-by-page adaptation, and perhaps realistically it could never be.

Much of the controversy generated before the film's release concerning its potential overt Christian propaganda turned out to be hot, empty gassing. Lewis intended the series as a Christian allegory, with Aslan representing Christ. Why is this regarded as "religious propaganda" whereas Phillip Pullman's children's fantasy "His Dark Materials" trilogy is not regarded as "secular propaganda"? Neither is propaganda except in the perception of the religious or secular fundamentalist. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe brought me much comfort and joy as a Muslim child growing up in Wales. Where are the classic Muslim children's stories, whether allegorical or otherwise? It is true that Lewis' prejudice against Islam does come across in some of the Narnia books. I don't know how Adamson, if he will still be in the directorial chair, will bring The Horse and His Boy (number three in the Narnia series) to the screen when the villains in the story are described as "men with long, dirty robes, and wooden shoes turned up at the toe, and turbans on their heads, and beards [and dark skin]." Perhaps the writers will cross that bridge when they come to it, as number four in the series, Prince Caspian, in which Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy return to a very different Narnia, is scheduled to be filmed next.

**Muhammed Abdelmoteleb is the head of English at an international school in Cairo. He is a graduate of both the University of Wales, Cardiff, and Cambridge University, and has been a contributor to Q-News, the British Muslim magazine. He resides in Cairo with his wife. You can contact him at mabdelmoteleb@gmail.com.