Nearly everyone that I have talked to says they liked it because it didn't leave anything out that was in the book. That in and of itself is a problem. Being slavishly devoted to the book is the perfect way to make a BAD adaptation to the movie media.
I'll agree that "slavish devotion" to a book can certainly lead to problems with an adaptation, but it is hardly a universal law. I have yet to see the film, but I feel comfortable saying that with a book as short as LWW, the problem I'd see a director having in adapting it would likely be in deciding how to flesh it out, not how to trim it down. Harry Potter IV, on the other hand, needed a good trimming, and it got it. When I hear that LWW had everything the book had, it doesn't make me dread seeing it, or think that it must be a bad adaptation.
In all honesty, Skar's review of the film seems far more obsessed with how he feels that his own personal interpretation of the book failed to make it to the screen.
The children were innocent and brave (if misled in Edmund's case) from the beginning to the end of the book. I will go so far as to say that I think Lewis made them that way on purpose, the better to focus on the themes he was playing with. Trying to tell a book length story on film is difficult enough without trying to make it more complicated by throwing in extraneous and ham-handed character development arcs that work directly against the main themes of the story.
Who decides what the "themes" of the novel are? Who decides what Lewis "intended"? In this case, it is the reviewer. Obviously, these sort of ideas are very much up for debate, and saying that the film failed to capture the "themes" of the novel is just as poor an argument as saying you loved it because it didn't leave anything out. The bottom line for me is that fidelity is a very squishy substance. It changes from one person to another, and using it to evaluate an adaptation works for only one person--the evaluator. In Skar's defense, he did point out specific aspects of the movie he didn't like--the cinematography, writing, acting, and pretty much everything else. That's far more stable ground to build a criticism on, but I still walk away from the review thinking, "Well, so it didn't capture his take on Narnia. I wonder what it will do for me?" My suggestion for anyone who watches an adaptation of one of their favorite books--and hates it--is to go back to the book and try to see what the adapters saw there. Maybe Lewis's dialogue really is rather wooden, or maybe the character arcs aren't really well developed. Or maybe Lewis was trying to capture a fairy tale like feeling, and so he kept the book on the sparse side. In any case, any adaptation--good or bad--should be an invitation to go back to the book and learn more about it.
I also wonder why there seems to be such a great divide between reviews of this film. Judging from Rotten Tomatoes, most reviewers liked it. Some sing its praises. Some say how stunning the acting was--and then some say how awful. Why is that? I really need to get the time to go see this flick, but in the meantime, I have two ideas that might be the cause of it:
1. People are comparing it to LOTR.
2. People are upset about how it handles the Christian themes.
Those of you who have seen it will have to throw your two cents in. I'll have to wait until I'm better informed.
