The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is a 2005 film based the book The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, the first published novel in C.S. Lewis' children's fantasy series The Chronicles of Narnia. The film was released on December 8, 2005 in the United Kingdom, and December 9, 2005 in Canada, the United States, and New Zealand. It was rated PG for battle sequences and frightening moments. The film was released on December 26, 2005 in Australia. The tagline of the film is The beloved masterpiece comes to life December 9.

It begins in 1940 when London is being plagued by air raids (see The Blitz) and the Pevensie children, Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy are evacuated to the country home of Professor Kirke. Mrs. Macready, a servant of Kirke, gives the children a few rules regarding their behavior in the house. One day while they are playing hide and seek, Lucy discovers a wardrobe and enters it. Behind the clothes is a snowy wood, in a magical world called Narnia. She spends what she experiences as several hours in the home of the faun Tumnus. Tumnus tells her that, due to a curse, in Narnia in the last 100 years there has only be winter, without Christmas. He seems friendly, but, as he later confesses, he plans to hand her over to the evil White Witch, in accordance with her general orders in the case a human would be encountered. However, Tumnus likes Lucy and regrets his plan and shows her the way to the place where she can return to the wardrobe.

When she returns it turns out that no time has passed in the ordinary world during her stay: she thinks that the others have been worried where she was all the time, but instead they complain that when playing hide-and seek one should not immediately reveal where one is. When she tells what happened, her siblings check out the back side of the wardrobe, but it is closed now; as a result they don't believe her, and claim that it was just her imagination.

On a second occasion Edmund follows Lucy into Narnia, and admits to Lucy that he was wrong, and that Narnia really exists. Lucy visits Tumnus again, while Edmund meets the White Witch. She offers him his favorite sweets, Turkish delight, which she magically makes appear, and offers him the prospect of becoming king, with his siblings as servants. She asks Edmund to bring them. After that Edmund and Lucy meet again, and Edmund learns that he has endangered Tumnus by telling the witch that Tumnus has met Lucy. However, he does not tell Lucy that he did this.

On return through the wardrobe, to Lucy's dismay, Edmund does not confirm Narnia's existence to Peter and Susan.

A third occasion is when the four siblings, after breaking a window, hide in the wardrobe from the strict housekeeper. Now all four step into Narnia. Peter and Susan apologize for their earlier unbelief.

They meet talking beavers, who tell them about the good lion Aslan, who is on the move to take over power from the White Witch. The four siblings must help Aslan and his followers, as has been prophesied.

Since the others are aware of the evilness of the White Witch, Edmund realizes he cannot persuade them to go to her. Therefore he wanders off and visits her himself. The witch is angry that he did not bring his siblings and wants to kill him and is pacified only by Edmund disclosing his siblings' location. Regardless, Edmund is chained in the dungeon and meets Tumnus in an adjacent cell who is soon turned to stone by the Queen.

While Peter, Lucy, Susan and the beavers were traveling to the Stone Table, they saw the White Witch and ran. But it was really Father Christmas. He gave Peter; a sword and shield, Susan; a bow and arrows and a horn, Lucy; a reviving liquid and a dagger.

Peter explains that they are not heroes. Also they are reluctant to participate in another war, after fleeing from London. However, they have at least to save Edmund. For Lucy another motivation is to save Tumnus. Peter becomes commander of Aslan's army.

They save Edmund. Aslan has a serious private talk with him, after which Aslan commands the others to let Edmund's past bad behavior rest. However, the witch claims Edmund, based on an old rule that traitors have to be handed over to her. Aslan negotiates that Edmund is left alone by the witch (redemption). In return he sacrifices himself, surrendering to the witch. He is humiliated and killed. However, he is resurrected. There was deeper magic that the Witch didn't know. Her knowledge only went back to the dawn of time. In the darkness in the time before time, the Stone Table said any willing victim who had commited no crime or treachery was killed in a traitor's slain. The Table would crack and death would reverse itself. Aslan took Susan and Lucy to the Witch's house where he freed the witch's stone victims.

Now that Edmund is safe, Peter, considering his promise to their mother that he would take care of his siblings, suggests that his three siblings go back to the normal world; he himself can join the fight without breaking his promise. However, they all want to fight for the good course.

On the battlefield, Peter's army wasn't doing well. Edmund was gravely injuied. Peter was fighting the witch until Aslan came. Everyone was shocked. Aslan pounced on the witch and did what he had to do. Lucy revived Edmund and others with the juice Father Christmas gave her.

The war is won by Peter's army and Aslan's reinforcements, and the four become kings and queens. Many years later, when they are adults, They were hunting the White Stag that can grant you wishes. They return through the wardrobe to the normal world and are young again. Little or no time has passed in the normal world. The Professor finds them and returns their ball. He asks what they were doing. Peter said, "You wouldn't believe us even if we told you." The Professor says: "Try me."

During the credits, Lucy tries to get back but the Professor tells her she would get for a long time. When they leave, the inside of the wardrobe glows and a familiar lion's roar came out...

There is a short sequence illustrating the air raids of the Battle of Britain to establish the characters and why they were evacuated out of the city. The scene also establishes Edmund's character flaws which will come into play later in the movie.

The circumstances surrounding each visit to Narnia are slightly altered. Lucy enters the wardrobe for the first time while playing hide and seek; in the book that is the second visit including Edmund. The second visit instead takes place when Lucy is unable to sleep. In the third visit, the children hide in the wardrobe because they have accidentally broken a window, rather than trying to avoid a tour group.

When Lucy visits Tumnus, it is revealed that Mr. Pevensie is fighting in World War II. Tumnus says that his father went away to war as well.

At Tumnus' house, during the Narnian lullaby sequence, the flames in the fire show Narnians (various species such as centaurs and fauns) dancing, hunting, and moving around the fire. At the end of the song, a flame shaped like a lion (Aslan) roars loudly, forcing Tumnus to realize what he's doing is wrong.

Edmund is drawn into the White Witch's fold by his disaffection towards his siblings. Indeed, Queen Jadis is the first one in the film to speak a kind word to him, and no-one does again until his long talk with Aslan, after Edmund’s rescue. In the book, Edmund was driven to serve the White Witch by a magical addiction to her food (specifically the Turkish Delight she creates for him in their first encounter). This quality seems to be absent in the movie, as Edmund doesn’t greedily finish the boxful and want more as per the book. Even the Queen's Dwarf partakes of the leftover sweets before discarding the rest.

The children have serious discussions twice in the film about leaving Narnia rather than getting involved in the land's internal problems (at one point, it is discussed that what they are getting involved in is no different than the war they were trying to get away from in the normal world).

When Edmund slips away to betray his siblings to the Queen, he learns immediately he had made a mistake when he is quickly imprisoned and meets Mr. Tumnus in an adjoining cell who is soon turned to stone for helping Lucy. In the book, Tumnus has already been turned to stone by this time.

The Pevensies follow Edmund to the Queen's castle before they flee to Aslan. As a result the wolves are in close pursuit of the children, and intercept them on the thawing river.

The Beavers and the other Pevensie siblings are assisted by a brave Fox who diverts their wolf pursuers before leaving to rally Aslan's forces.

Father Christmas is not named (presumably so American audiences can identify him as Santa Claus). He does not give gifts to Mr. & Mrs. Beaver. He does not tell Lucy that it is ugly when women participate in battles (presumably to remove this 1950s sexist attitude for the movie)

Instead of encountering a group of Narnians enjoying Father Christmas' gift, the Queen and Edmund meet the fox who is turned to stone for treason despite Edmund's attempts to appease her.

When Peter, Susan, and Lucy reach Aslan's camp, there are various tents, etc. Originally in the book, it was just Aslan and the gathering of various animals around the Stone Table, with only one tent for Aslan.

One of the centaurs is named Oreius for the film and placed in a position of authority over the army.

Upon Aslan's death, the Pevensie girls arrange for a message to Peter's force about the loss.

The battle is depicted in detail with additions such as an aerial bombardment of rocks dropped by flying animals (presumably griffons) on the Queen's forces, a Phoenix laying down a barrier of fire to further impede them and a guarded withdrawal to the rocks.

The freeing of the Queen's prisoners in her castle by Aslan is condensed.

Susan joins the battle and kills the Queen's dwarf who was about to finish off the wounded Edmund.

The coronation of the Pevensie children includes the immediate bestowing of their honorifics.

The depiction of the sibling's later lives as royalty in Narnia is limited to their hunt for the White Stag which leads to their return to the normal world through the wardrobe where they immediately meet the Professor. Also notable is that they do not talk differently, despite having been kings and queens for so long, as they did in the books.

Lucy makes one last attempt to use the Wardrobe, only to have the Professor meet and tell her that the portal no longer works. However, when the pair leave, light shines from the Wardrobe one last time as Aslan's roar is heard.

Box Office Mojo reported that Narnia opened with $23.9 million USD in 3,616 theaters in its opening day (December 9, 2005), averaging $6,610 per location. The film took in a total of $67,064,000 on its opening weekend (December 9 - 11, 2005)

Released in the 33rd most theatres of all time, the Chronicles were able to yield the 22nd most successful opening day ever (and the 2nd most profitable December opening weekend), behind other 2005 blockbusters Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. With a second weekend which grossed 31.2 million USD, Narnia scored 37th best second weekend of all time.

And then, to further prove its resilience, "Narnia" went on to score high numbers in later weeks, as well; grossing the 3rd highest fourth weekend of all-time (25.7 million USD), the 4th highest fifth weekend (15.6 million USD), and--with 12.3 million USD in its sixth weekend (a four day weekend) it became the 12th highest grossing film after six weeks at the box office

On December 7, 2005 the film premiered in London, going on general release the following day. Many critics have given the film positive reviews, one calling it a "masterpiece of fantasy literature come to life" (Sean McBride, 2005).

The film is currently 75% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes and 121 of the listed 162 reviews are positive, with an average rating of 7/10. User reviews are at 86%.

Google's web crawler has logged 86 reviews throughout the internet (as of December 29, 2005) with a projected average rating of 3.7/5 stars.

Roger Ebert gave the film 3/4 stars.

Ebert and Roeper gave the movie "Two Thumbs Up".

Duane Dudak of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel gave the movie 3/4 stars.

Stuwart Klawans of The Nation said, "All ticket buyers will get their money's worth."

Elizabeth Weitzman of New York Daily News gave it 4/4 stars and said: "A generation-spanning journey that feels both comfortingly familiar and excitingly original."

Metacritic gives the movie a 7.6, based on 38 reviews (link)

Kit Bowen (Hollywood.com) gives this film 3/4 stars

Claudia Puig from USA Today stated that the film feels a bit like The Lord of the Rings Jr"

John Anderson from Newsday stated that: ...there's a deliberateness, a fastidiousness and a lack of daring and vision that marks the entire operation.

Peter Debruge from Premiere Magazine wrote: It feels as if the book were adapted by someone who spends too much time attending sci-fi conventions.

Michael Phillips from the Chicago Tribune stated that: You keep waiting to be transported, yet in cinematic terms, the transportation never arrives.

Cynthia Fuchs from PopMatters wrote: ...the children's indoctrination seems less charming. They are warriors, drawn into killing and a general faith in militarism, into the sense that wars might solve problems, or at the least, beat them into submission.

Winter scenes were shot in the Czech Republic and Poland. Aslan's camp was filmed at Elephant Rock, Tokarahi, near Oamaru in New Zealand. The battle scene was filmed near Castle Hill, New Zealand. Other filming was done in Waitakere (Auckland, New Zealand), and Guatemala.

The movie's original motion picture soundtrack was composed by Harry Gregson-Williams (composer of 2005's Kingdom of Heaven soundtrack, and the score for the Shrek films). The soundtrack was released on December 13, 2005.

Music Inspired by the Chronicles of Narnia is a collection of songs by various Christian artists with the common theme of The Chronicles of Narnia. This CD was released in anticipation of the December 9, 2005 premiere of the movie. The artists range from Christian pop personalities, such as Bethany Dillon, to Christian alternative rockers Kutless, to hip-hop/rap style tobyMac. By October 2005, the songs "Remembering You" by Steven Curtis Chapman and "Waiting for the World to Fall" by Jars of Clay were already being played on Contemporary Christian radio. Music Inspired by the Chronicles of Narnia on iTunes