This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

One of those movie experiences that is so good it makes you realize you've been grading everything else on a curve.

It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review

Yes, absolutely, there is fun to be had, as well as many, many things to go boom, all amid an atmospheric urban jungle.

The Silver Chair is one of my favorite stories of the Narnia series. The messages are powerful, the adventures are intense, and the ending bitter-sweet (and desirable). Mostly it's about Jill and Eustace being called out of their world, and with the help of a marshwiggle called Puddleglum, they go to find a lost Narnian prince who is being held captive by the Lady of the Green Kirtle (also known as the Queen of the Underland). Along the way they encounter giants, unfriendly weathers, and underground creatures. The plot sounds great, but the movie couldn't quite live up to the intenseness of the story. I don't blame the directors or writers, especially since there was not much CGI back then, so everyone had to dress in animal costumes, use a robotic lion for Aslan, and the special effects for the giants vs the main characters was not the best. The robotic Aslan looked very very awkward. Whenever it talked its jaw would drop at the wrong times, it barely ever sat or lay down, and the character (compared to the first movie) always seemed angry. Sure he's considered to not be a tame lion, but he wasn't always angry, but neither was he always pleased with everything. Maybe I'm just being picky, but I feel more of his anger than kindness or compassion.The only other thing that bothers me is the cheesy acting. I would have to say that Puddleglum and Prince Rillian are the only characters I enjoy who aren't over acting, but the rest of the actors make no sense in their acting. Take for example at the beginning when the bullies are "picking' on Jill, all they're doing is cornering her and yelling her last name, "Pole! Pole! Pole!" What are they making fun of? Are they making fun of her name being the same as a telephone pole? And when they're chasing her, what's the purpose? Do they just want to continue shouting Pole at her? That's one of many parts that always confused me. But the only overacting to rival all of them is the Lady of the Green Kirtle herself. It's Barbara Kellerman; and we've already seen her as the overacting White Witch and the Hag from the previous films, so she's pretty much not playing a different role. I would have liked it better if the directors got someone else for the part, but I guess there was a low budget, so I'll let that pass. However, what I won't let pass is that she's way over the top in her acting and being over dramatic. It almost felt as if she thought that the only way anybody would get the idea of how evil her character was, was for her to go over the top in her monologues, screaming, run around a lot, and change her voice around from deep and angry to sweet and soft. True that's what she does in the book, but she had a way of containing her wrath by being calm and cool until she couldn't at the very end. In the movie she goes in and out of frustration and sweetness making me confused.I occasionally watch it, but I still think that it's a bit cheesy and could have been better improved (at least in the acting if not in the special effects).

This is the third in my three-part review of the BBC Narnia serial. Please check out my earlier two.THE SILVER CHAIR This one's always been the best, hands down. Similar to Dawn Treader, this is due to the story being a quest, which adapts well to film, and there is less emphasis on battles or visual f/x, but more on adventure and discovery. The climatic scenes involving Rillian imprisoned in the silver chair make for compelling drama. I also think the costumes and sets improved this time around, especially in the Underland Palace.The cleverest conceit of this adaptation is the idea of the bewitched Rillian wearing an iron mask, something that wasn't in the book but works BRILLIANTLY on film. Obviously they HAD to do this so that the audience wouldn't recognize him at first, but it just adds such a great visual touch to the tormented character. Indeed, the role of Rillian is really a three part performance: 1. A naive romantic youth in the flashbacks, 2. An angry and tormented knight while bewitched, and 3. A more mature and valiant version of the first stage after he is freed.Camilla Power is very good as Jill, making the character very headstrong and likable (which Lucy wasn't). She's also very pretty. Eustace is good again. Warwick Davis (who previously was Reepicheep and this time is Glimfeather) and Big Mick (as Trumpklin) are also good again, but sadly there is less of both. Barbara Kellerman (playing a different witch) totally overacts yet again, and THANK GOD that there is also less of her this time around.But the real star is Tom Baker as Puddleglum. Everyone who's ever seen this agrees that his performance is likely the best in the entire BBC series, and I personally think he deserved a BAFTA. He just plays the role so pessimistically, yet delivers his jokes with such a straight face. And underneath all that, he's actually a very brave companion, and his speech to the Witch makes you want to cheer.Alas, nothing is perfect, and this entry still has problems. The production value is still what it is, and the pacing becomes a problem again (a full 3 hours on a rather simple book). There is one scene that LITERALLY DID make me crack up at its corniness, which is when Eustace tries to stop Jill from falling off the cliff and ends up falling himself. What makes it so funny is the fact that you don't actually see the cliff they're standing on, and it was obviously just filmed over a hill. But I will forgive them that, since I realize that with their budget, there probably was no alternative way to film the scene.WEAKEST MOMENT: When our heroes arrive at the committee of the Owls, and we're staring at a bunch of cartoon eyeballs in the dark. Oy vey!In conclusion, the BBC serials were a worthy attempt at adapting Narnia, and most of us who loved Narnia as kids and had no other film versions will look back at this series with nostalgia. But I for one look forward to the new versions. The true Aslan and Narnia exist only in the pages of C.S. Lewis, and that is the best place to get the story!

This is much better than the BBC's earlier forays into Narnia, partly due to the book it's based on. It's set in the bare, unpopulated wastes to Narnia's north, so the drab scenery is not a defect. Nor is the absence of extras. Puddleglum, C.S. Lewis's best Narnian creation, is played by Tom Baker, who fits the role as well as anyone on Earth. In general the acting is better in `The Silver Chair' than it was earlier on. Direction is crisper, costumes are more convincing: everything has improved. I have commented harshly on `The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe', and most of those comments apply here as well, but never to the same extent. This is actually okay television. Of course, an adaptation of the Narnia books should be much more than that.

Well done! Tom Baker was marvellous! Nick Brimble as "The Giant Porter" was great and I wished I could have seen more of him. This series does a great job of bringing some children's classic books to the small screen. Good acting and good special effects! For what seemed to be a small budget production, they've (BBC?) done a great job!