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15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Most visibly brave, 8 Feb 2006
One of the big blockbusters of last year (and this year) was "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe." Great CGI, good acting on all fronts, and a suitably good soundtrack composed (mostly) by Harry Gregson-Williams. It has a flat moment here and there, but is overall an excellent product. The movie's events can almost be traced by the soundtrack events: It opens with the ominous, rough "The Blitz, before switching to the delicate, sad strains of "Evacuating London." From there on, there are all kinds of songs, to match whatever is going on in the movie -- the peace and grandeur of Aslan's camp, the thrill of meeting Father Christmas, the sadness and horror of the sacrifice, the excitement of a coronation, and the beauty and sorrow of a doomed battle. If it sounds glorious, it is. Gregson-Williams makes the music sound both fantastical and rich, as the movie needs. The most haunting song is only a minute and a quarter long: Tumnus' "Narnia Lullaby," a flute song backed by tribal drums. It starts off soft, but slowly grows more intense and eerie. Oh, and a note to moviegoers: That exquisite, soaring ballad that you heard as the credits started was NOT Alanis Morrisette. It was electro-pop singer Imogen Heap. "Oh, empty my heart/I've got to make room for this feeling/So much bigger than me," she sings over an increasingly epic tip-hop backdrop. Man, she was robbed. Not that Morrisette's song is unworthy -- her "Wunderkind" is a solid production, earthier and more rock-y, but still with an otherworldly charm. Her song sounds like an ode to Lucy, "And I am a magnet for all kinds of deeper wonderment/I am a wunderkind/I am a groundbreaker naïve enough to believe this/I am a princess on the way to my throne..." Next to thise, Tim Finn (formerly of Split Enz) sounds jarringly un-ethereal. He just doesn't fit in with the other music; he might on another soundtrack, but here he just had me reaching for the skip button. Fortunately, Lisbeth Scott's brief, slightly mournful "Where" suits the soundtrack very well. While one of the singers doesn't fit the soundtrack, the score for "The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe" is a solid one, with plenty of standout tracks.
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~ Ilan Eshkeri
~ Original Soundtrack
