Chronicles of Narnia: The Silver Chair

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Customer Review: Chronicles of Narnia; Next Stop Underland!
(Warning: Spoilers herein ) Preface: Even though I previously reviewed BBC’s “The Chronicles of Narnia” as a series (sometime ago now), I am still going to review each entry individually, in order to give them all the detailed and attentive critiques they truly deserve… Part 3:The Silver Chair. Compared to Voyage of the Dawn Treader, or Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, this is not a huge favorite of mine, but it has definitely grown on me over the years since I first saw it. The story itself is GREAT and is very much like a more modern fantasy one might find a middle-schooler reading. (This sort of style is different from the others in the series. There is great adventure, excitement, drama, suspense, and a truly intriguing and clever mystery plot, involving a missing prince (played brilliantly by Richard Henders.) Just about everything in this film is well-done. The acting by all is brilliant: Camilla Power, and David Thwaites have singular talent and dramatic chemistry as the two children, while Richard Henders reeks of nobility and valiance as Prince Rillian (he really seems to be a great actor, put simply.) Tom Baker (familiar to fans of Dr. Who)is present as Puddleglum, the depressed (and depressing) Marsh Wiggle who really has a great heart and courage underneath (great performance if I haven’t made that clear already), and Barbara Kellerman returns once again as the Emerald Witch , queen of Underland, and the evil doer of the piece. She is shown to be highly vicious to her employees( strange, well-played little creatures who don’t seem to have ever seen the sun; very well characterized), and is cunning, deceptive, highly intelligent and quick-thinking, and singularly charismatic. Kellerman does not let down, fully delivering with all of her thespian talent, and helping to make the finale amongst the most chilling moments of the entire series (combining Kellerman, Baker, and Henders, not to mention the children, really seems to create electricity and drama.) Warwick Davis appears as Glimfeather, an owl and is exceptionally skilled, as are all other cast ( the giants are really well-done.) All this is helped by this probably being the best overall script (as concerns dialog and nuance/subtlety), and there is not a bad line to be heard, and some are even in the “above and beyond” category. Words cannot even begin to describe how real all of the sets, props, costumes, hair and makeups look. Underland is done to perfection,creating a real, and rather unpleasant environment. It is really this setting combined with the great visuals (serpent puppet aside, and I think the moment is still chilling), and the brilliant acting that make the last hour of this admittedly long, but very engaging and interesting production , electric, and probably the best section, the giants aside. Again, the visuals aren’t the best (and actually there seems to be much legitimate improvement here), but with all the other positive qualities- acting (again, let’s all say “Ronald Pickup is Aslan), sets, props costuming, hair/makeup, some of the visuals, excitement/suspense, drama, story and script- this film really is great, for the open minded. Overall, 5/5 (even though the DVD isn’t much, and the minimal special features won’t interest you much unless you are a collector, and/or longtime fan.) Great ( and sadly final) entry in the series!
Customer Review: Silverchair review
This was okay. It did show most of the elements of the book. However, it was somewhat slow paced a bit boring. Also, the disc skipped and I had to clean it. Even then, at the end of the film, there was still a slight bit of skipping (or interruption) in the scene.
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