Blu-ray Movie Reviews

Just in time for the second installments launch in theaters, Disney brings their big budget The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe to Blu-ray as a 2-disc special edition. I have to admit I wasn't the biggest fan of this film when I saw it originally in theaters. I usually go for this kind of film but this one just didn't strike a chord with me at all. On this second viewing my feelings are pretty much the same. I just have trouble connecting with the characters and I don't like the toned down nature of the film. Obviously Disney wanted something that would be family friendly but I think this hurts the scope and emotional impact. Warner has managed to balance these issues with their popular Harry Potter series, but Disney missed that mark in my opinion. Nevertheless audiences seemed to love this one given its box office haul so I'm sure there are plenty of fans eager to see it on Blu-ray. One word of note though, this is the theatrical cut of the film. An extended edition was released on DVD sometime ago and I was honestly surprised it was not included for this release.

Disney has been releasing first rate Blu-ray video transfers for all of their bigger films so I was surprised that this one didn't quite meet the mark of excellence that I saw with the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise. That isn't to say this don't look good, it just falls a bit short of a reference transfer. The biggest issue is overall image sharpness. The transfer appears to have a slight haze to it. Just about every medium to long shot just lacks the sharpness we normally see with a high quality HD release. Even my wife commented from time to time asking why it was so soft, and she hardly ever notices stuff like that. Fine object detail in close up shots was quite good though and I was continually impressed with the depth of image the Blu-ray transfer afforded. The print used is quite clean and I didn't see any print wear or even film grain for that matter. With the apparent softness and lack of film grain I'm almost wondering whether some noise reduction processing was applied. Overall this is still a great looking disc, it just falls a bit short of the reference HD transfers on the market today.

Despite the 2-disc edition with the majority of the extras on the second disc, the PCM 5.1 soundtrack is only 48/16. Disney has been including full 24 bit soundtracks for the majority of their releases so I was surprised to see them truncate this one given the high profile nature of the film. How much this affects the overall soundtrack quality is anyone's guess but this track didn't impress me nearly as much as I would have expected given the production value of the film. The front soundstage is quite wide with nice dynamic range but the surround soundstage didn't balance well with it and came off a bit more gimmicky than I'm use to from A-list titles. The track lacked the ambiance a tight cohesive mix can afford. Dynamic range overall was quite good though and the lower end of the soundtrack provided plenty of punch in the action sequences of the film. Some of the dialogue sounded a bit forward but it was hardly distracting. Overall this is a satisfying mix but like the video it fell a bit short of a demo soundtrack.

Being the high profile release this is Disney has included a wealth of supplements over the 2-disc set. I was bummed to see the majority of the supplements were not in high definition. The only HD content available on the supplement side was some trailers and a rather intensive BD-J game that was far more than some simple kid's game. The main disc features two audio commentaries, a pop up fact track and a bloopers feature that had a few funny moments. The second disc is where the meat and potatoes lie. Here you'll find two separate production features. One is nearly feature length and explores the author of the original books, the production and the special effects. The other includes interviews, behind the scenes footage and a look at the cast and crew that brought the film to the screen. Last up is a look at the creatures and characters of the film.

With the popularity of the Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings series it was no wonder that Disney jumped on this one. From a production standpoint they've done a superb job of crafting Lewis' tale. While I wasn’t the biggest fan of this installment I am still planning on seeing the next one. As for this Blu-ray release, while it didn't feature the A/V transfer I was expecting it was still a solid effort with a great supplemental package.