True fantasY

And then she saw that there was a light ahead of her; not a few inches away from where the back of the wardrobe ought to have been, but a long way off... she found that she was standing in the middle of a wood at night-time with snow under her feet and snowflakes falling through the air ... –C.S. Lewis, The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe

One of the most beloved fantasy adventures of the 20th century and a timeless tale of sheer imagination at last comes to life with this stunningly realistic, painstakingly authentic adaptation of C.S. Lewis’ masterpiece. Years in the making, this is the first-ever big-screen adaptation of the powerful classic that has sold more than 100 million copies worldwide.

Walt Disney Pictures and Walden Media present The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, in which four young adventurers playing hide-and-seek in the country home of an old professor stumble upon an enchanted wardrobe that will take them places they never dreamed. Stepping through the wardrobe door, they are whisked out of World War II London into the spectacular parallel universe known as Narnia –a fairy-tale realm of magical proportions where woodland animals talk and mythological creatures roam the hills.

But Narnia has fallen under the icy spell of a mad sorceress, cursed to suffer through a winter that never ends by the White Witch Jadis. Now, aided by Narnia’s rightful leader, the wise and mystical lion Aslan, the Pevensie children will discover their own strength and lead Narnia into a spectacular battle to be free of the Witch’s glacial enslavement forever. Touching on eternal themes of good and evil, of the power of family, courage and hope in the darkest moments, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is a timeless, classic fable.

Years in the making and meticulously created by director Andrew Adamson to match Lewis’s own vision of Narnia, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe marks the live-action debut of Adamson, who came to fore bringing worldwide audiences the loveable green ogre at the heart of the Oscar-winning Shrek and Shrek 2.

Adamson carries to the film a passion for Lewis’s story that began in his own childhood, one that now meets up with extraordinary advances in motion picture technology. The vast scope of the director’s vision of Narnia is brought to life through a mixture of moving human performances and cutting-edge, photo-realistic techniques in CGI, animation and prosthetic makeup that turn the wildly creative worlds and characters Lewis forged into something heart-stoppingly close to reality.

Says Adamson: "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe has taken millions of young minds into realms of fantasy, so the enormous challenge as a filmmaker was to try to re-create those worlds in a way that might live up to and even exceed people’s imaginations. You couldn’t have made this film five years ago. You couldn’t have made a photo-realistic lion like Aslan five years ago, or joined animal legs onto a human body realistically as we did with centaurs and minotaurs. Now is the right time to be making this story."

"The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe" opens today in theaters across the country. There will be a special screening of the movie at 3 pm today at Power Plant Cinema 6 sponsored by Trumpets, which produced the stage musical adaptation of this masterpiece. Contact Trumpets at tel 635-4478 for information on this special screening.