This was the first 3D movie I've seen, not counting one or two really primitive ones when I was a kid in the '50s. I really was expecting the 3D business to be an annoying gimmick that would just get in the way. I was pleasantly surprised. For the first three or four minutes it was almost disorienting, and it actually crossed my mind that I might get motion sickness, which is not something that I normally have a problem with. But my wife does, and I was really concerned about her--the one and only time she went to an IMAX movie she had to get up and leave almost immediately.

But after that first few minutes, we got used to it. I quickly began to take it for granted, and didn't consciously pay attention to it except when there was something obviously designed to take startling advantage of it, like a monster coming straight out of the screen at you. 

I won't be surprised if ten years or so from now most movies use this technique. I suppose it adds a lot to the production and exhibition costs, so perhaps it will always be limited to big-budget spectacles. One does feel a little silly wearing those glasses. And I got the impression from my wife that one looks a little silly, especially if one has to wear them over normal prescription glasses. And the glasses are discarded afterwards, so maybe environmentalists will object.

I suppose it's just another symptom of our current lawsuit craziness that the packaging for the glasses contains a dire warning that they are not to be used as a substitute for sunglasses, accompanied by a gruesome graphic which appears to show an evil sun thrusting a pointed beam through the glasses and consequently through what would be the eyeball and brain of a person wearing the glasses, who fortunately is not depicted.

As for the movie...it's a big loud Hollywood movie. It's not all bad, but lovers of the Narnia books should approach it with low expectations, if at all.