I took my 12 and 14 year old girls to see it ASAP. By the end, the older was crying tears of rage. Out of all the Narnia books, this was her favorite, and the one that looked best suited for translation “as is” to the film genre. But the writers didn’t consider the real story “good enough” and “improved” it with mechanized magic and McGuffins.
I hear ya!
What is it with film makers that they mess about with the tone and the subtext from extremely well-known and well-loved fantasy novels in the name of spicing up the plot?
Take the Lord of the Rings films, for example. Peter Jackson scrupulously avoided walking into the obvious traps, but even so he managed to fall foul of it with Legolas and Gimli.
In the books, Legolas and Gimli distrust each other from the outset (being almost natural enemies), but develop a kinship through fighting side by side, and end up almost as brothers. That’s their story and it was vastly more relevant to the LOTR story in Tolkien’s eyes, than the Arwen-Aragorn relationship.
In the films, Jackson tried to make us laugh at the dwarf not being able to see over the battlements or being hampered by the orc/ogre corpses, while Legolas goes off on a one-man ninja assault.
It’s the only real misfire in that otherwise brilliant adaptation.