I think the film laid the christian references on a bit thick myself. Especially compared to other screen and stage adapations (ie the BBC version, the Royal Shakespeare Company's stage version, the liscensced stage version): the script, as well as the use of lighting and music, rather hammered home Aslan's divinity as well as certain other points. I'll have to check, for example, but I don't think that that fantastically Christ-like "It is finished" is in the original. There was even some sort of attempt to change the theology into perhaps a more modern or protestant form: I didn't catch any references to the Emperor Over the Sea (God), and they removed the distinction between the Deep Magic From the Dawn of Time (The Old Testament) and the Deeper Magic From Before the Dawn of Time (The New Testament). I thought it was a decent film. It suffered a bit from lackluster child acting, trying too hard to be Lord of the Rings, and trying to take itself a bit too seriously, which made the retro fifties childrens book aspects stick out too much. Still, a good film. I take it as definite proof that it is now entirely possible to make very good secondary world fantasy films, and that Lord of the Rings was not a fluke. I hope to see a new surge of such films in the future: it's now not beyond the bounds of possibility for films to be made of the more popular fantasy novels such as The Sword of Shannara and Edding's Belgariad series. There are two things my heart really yearns for though: First, decent Discworld films. Second, I sincerely hope Jackson can secure the rights to The Hobbit. The Hobbit is the best childrens book ever: though Tolkien and Lewis were both contemporaries, friends, academics and devout Catholics (indeed, it was Tolkien converted Lewis to Catholicism) only one of them was a genius. And his name wasn't Clive.
