The Chronicles Of Narnia: The Lion The Witch And The Wardrobe review

It's been a long time coming, but finally the first of C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia - The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe - makes it to the big screen. The film company - BVI and ultimately Disney - hope that this will be the first in a series of films (there are seven books), but will it prove to have the pulling power of more recent film franchises?

With WWII in full swing, the four Pevensie children - Lucy, Edmund, Susan and Peter - are evacuated from London to a large house in the countryside for safety. Their benefactor Professor Kirke (Broadbent) is a reclusive man and it falls on the children to amuse themselves in the house's many cavernous rooms.

During a game of hide and seek, Lucy finds herself the perfect place to stow herself away - a large antique wardrobe. Whilst pushing her way to the back through the fur coats, Lucy is transported to the magical and wintry land of Narnia. Of course her siblings don't believe her tales of meeting the mysterious Mr Tumnus until they too make a trip through the wardrobe.

What follows is a morality tale for all growing children. All the major issues are covered - the power of good over evil, the values of trust and loyalty and a good dose of stiff upper lip in the face of adversity. To reveal more about the plot would spoil it for anyone who doesn't know the story, but needless to say it does involve a villain - Tilda Swinton is magnificent as the evil White Witch - and a hero - Alsan the lion - a fantastic feat of CGI that surely must have blown most of the special effects budget.

The film will suffer from the inevitable comparisons to Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings which is a little unfair. Aside from the stunning special effects and New Zealand locations, the film has more of a BBC Sunday teatime feel to it rather than the blockbuster franchise it would like to be. Will that fact be enough to carry the film in America? With the exception of the youngest, Lucy (Georgie Henley), the children are very British middle class and forgettable - not an ideal combination for an ongoing series. Viewers will have trouble warming to them and considering they are the heroes of the piece this is a major issue.

A series of action set-pieces rattle the film along in the second half, again helped enormously by the computer generated magical creatures. Comic relief comes in the form of two friendly beavers, voiced to perfection by Ray Winstone and Dawn French. Ultimately viewers will leave the cinema satisfied that evil has been foiled and that they haven't wasted their entrance money - an altogether more common occurrance.