Review: The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian
by Andy Hunsaker
Fancast Movies
Note: Here There Be Spoilers: Read at your own risk.
Only one wide release this weekend, and perhaps that's wise for any studio competing with Disney. The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe was a box office juggernaut back at the tail end of 2005, so much so that the sequel got a nice juicy slot at the beginning of the summer movie season - before the Indiana Jones monster, but two weeks after the Iron Man kick-off explosion. What the original had going for it was its loose Lord of the Rings affiliation yet with a somewhat brighter and more kid-focused tone, as well as the strong Christian overtones that tend to bring out a rather fanatical throng of moviegoers that normally don't bother with the Evil That Is Hollywood. Not to mention the fact that the starring children were not nearly as annoying as many movie kids can be.
Prince Caspian retains the Christian allegory, but significantly darkens the tone, as it seems hundreds of years have passed since the Pevensie children last visited to drive off the White Witch, although only a year has passed for them. An evil regime called the Telmarines has invaded and conquered Narnia, driving all the creatures of legend and folklore into the mysterious woods and into hiding for so long that they're believed extinct. The evil Miraz (Sergio Castellitto) is uncle to Caspian (Ben Barnes), the rightful heir to the Telmarine throne, and the moment Miraz is borne a son, he tries to have the prince assassinated so he may become king himself. When Caspian flees to the woods, he discovers Trumpkin (Peter Dinklage), a dwarf who so startles him that he uses the magic horn he's been given to summon help. Little does he know that the Kings and Queens of Narnia of legend are then brought back from the real world's England to once again drive off the forces of darkness from their beloved land.
2 Chronicles 2 Narnia takes a while to get off the ground, as there's a great deal of slow walking and subdued staring around by the Pevensie kids as the try to figure out what happened, while the audience begs for some exposition to get things rolling. Thankfully, Dinklage handles the job well as the gruff but benevolent guide to the new Narnia. Once the kids start to marshal the remaining Narnian centaurs, minotaurs and various other beasts (including Eddie Izzard as an amusing and quite literal mouseketeer) to the cause of ending Miraz's tyranny, the adventure really starts to pick up and carries the film to surpassing the original.
This Fancast Exclusive clip of the beginnings of the raid on Miraz's castle is when business really picks up, as High King Peter (William Moseley) clashes with Caspian on how best to lead this army, and how the young men must learn to cope with crushing failure and carry on. The kids once again don't fall into that precocious and annoying trap and are a bit more subtle and, well, British in their approach to adventure. The climactic battle against the massive Telmarine hordes truly begins to feel legitimately epic in stature - that is, until Aslan the Jesus Lion (Liam Neeson) shows up and waves all their problems away in about three minutes, sending them all back to happy happy land with a sack lunch and an advance on their allowances for being good boys and girls.
The major flaw in the film is that Christian allegory it maintains. Woven throughout the strugges against the Telmarines are little Lucy's (Georgie Henley) assertions that she's seen Aslan lurking about, while the others never catch a glimpse of him, ostensibly because they don't have the same faith that Lucy does. When they wonder about that, Lucy thinks that maybe instead of Aslan proving himself to them, they have to prove themselves to Aslan, etc. It's some pretty heavy-handed Biblical schtick, but instead of making Aslan look like a benevolent Christlike figure, it just seems to paint him as kind of a jerk - letting hundreds of Narnians die in battle while he waits for a prepubescent kid to wish hard enough for him to get involved. Without anything more than a "nothing happens the same way twice" platitude to explain it. True, he does save the day in a rather spectacular fashion, but the question of why he abandoned the Narnians to this fate for so long to begin with is never really addressed.
Overall, though, the slow early going and the super-tidy ending don't drag the exciting middle down enough to ruin the film. There's just something to be said for watching a horde of medieval soldiers waging war against an army of organized and tactically-sound wild animals and monsters, and I'm happy to be the guy to say it.
Watch Fancast's exclusive clip of the castle raid by the Narnians against the Telmarines in The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian.
Watch the trailer for The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian.
Go behind the scenes to see how the world of Narnia is created.
More mysteries of Narnia revealed.
Watch the SNL digital short Lazy Sunday, and see how Narnia made Andy Samberg famous.
Interviews:
Ben Barnes (Prince Caspian)
More with Ben Barnes.
William Moseley {Peter Pevensie}
Anna Popplewell (Susan Pevensie)
Director Andrew Adamson
More with Andrew Adamson.
The red carpet premiere.
The cast talks about the darker version of Narnia.
More with the cast and crew
