I've read the book, and some of the others in the series, in my youth and more recently with my daughter. I can't remember all the details, so I'm not sure how much this film deviates from the original story. Actually we are currently rereading The Magician's Nephew, so we will be reading this one again soon.

There will be complaints that they have missed out the first book, but film making has different priorities. This film is a pretty good realisation of C.S. Lewis's imaginary world. New Zealand provides the scenery, as it did for Lord of the Rings. It's about four children who find their way into another world via the wardrobe and end up as part of a great battle between good (the lion) and evil (guess who?). The kids do a pretty good job of acting. Tilda Swinton is suitably evil as the witch. Most of the rest of the cast seems to be computer generated to at least some extent. The effects are not quite up to the standard of some other recent films, but good enough to tell the story and keep the kids happy. It gallops along at a good pace. I enjoyed it, but it didn't require too much thought.

There has been a lot of comment about this film having some sort of Christian message. Okay, so there is a sacrifice/resurection element and a few other connections, but I don't think it really matters. I don't know enough of the Bible to comment further, but surely all these mythical creatures fighting for good would not be welcome in your average church. I've just been watching some of the extras on the Two Towers and mention is made of Lewis being an atheist, but other sources say that he converted before he wrote these books.

There's an official site at Disney, but it's not too exciting.

I've previously read his book Station X on Bletchley Park. This one focuses on the efforts to break the Japanese codes in the second world war. It draws on a lot of comments from people who were actually involed, which brings it to life. Smith himself does a pretty good job of detailing all the goings on. It can get a bit confusing with all the people and places involved. There is some detail about how some codes were broken, but I would have liked a bit more detail, perhaps with some examples to get a real idea of what was involved. The story has a local connection as a lot of people were taught Japanese in my home town of Bedford.

Part of the story involves the issues of cooperation, or lack of it, between the British and the Americans. There was even rivalry between the US army and navy. This may have cost many lives when information was not shared. The people were incredibly dedicated. They often knew nothing about how their results were used or what other departments were doing and could receive no public recognition of their work. It's only fairly recently that the public has been aware of it at all.

In all a good read, but be prepared to work at it to keep track of everything.

Maybe this year I will get around to visiting Bletchley Park. It's not as if it's far away.