The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian Review
Posted by Jeffrey Harris on 05.17.2008
British people using Spanish accents doesn't always work.
The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian
Directed By: Andrew Adamson Written By: Andrew Adamson, Christopher Markus, and Stephen McFeely; Based on the book and characters created by C.S. Lewis Runtime: 144 minutes MPAA Rating: Rated PG for epic battle action and violence.
Prince Caspian - Ben Barnes Peter Pevensie - William Moseley Lucy Pevensie - Georgia Henley Edmund Pevensie - Skandar Keynes Susan Pevensie - Anna Popplewell King Miraz - Sergio Castellito Trumpkin - Peter Dinklage Nikabrik - Warwick Davis Doctor Cornelius - Vincent Grass The White Queen, Jadis - Tilda Swinton Aslan - Liam Neeson (voice) Reepicheep - Eddie Izzard (voice) Trufflehunter - Ken Stott (voice)
The saga of C.S. Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia continues on film with the new movie, Prince Caspian. The sequel to the huge 2005 hit, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe. In November of that year, the movie was released sandwiched between Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire and Peter Jackson'sKing Kong. Yet the underdog Narnia outperformed both movies, something the mainstream media didn't really want to acknowledge, and fanboys expecting their giant gorilla movie to crush this silly family movie based on childrens' books.
At the end of The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, after having defeated the White Queen/Witch Jadis, the Pevensie siblings (Peter [Moseley, Edmund [Keynes], Susa [Popplewell], and Lucy [Henley]) take rule over the realm of Narnia as kings and queens. However, some years later in pursuing the golden hind, they end up returning to their own time returning to the same age at which they were before they entered Narnia through the wardrobe in the home of Professor Digory Kirke. Despite having lived years as adults the Pevensies returned to being pre-teens and adolescents.
At the start of, Prince Caspian, much has changed in Narnia since the Pevensies left and the great lion, Aslan (The voice of Neeson), went on his way. The land was invaded by a group of men known as the Telmarines. The Telmarines hunted and tried to exterminate the races indigenous to the land such as the talking beasts, dwarves, centaurs, and minotaurs and claim it for themselves. After the death of the Telmarine king, Caspian IX, his brother, Miraz (Castellito) has been tyranically ruling the country before the heir to the throne, Prince Caspian X (Barnes) is of age to become king. Miraz sees a chance to steal the throne when his wife gives birth to a son, and attempts to have Caspian assassinated. Caspian's teacher, Professor Cornelius (Grass), helps Caspian escape, bidding him Susan Pevensie's old magical horn to "use in his greatest need". Caspian flees to the forests of Narnia where he's taken captive by the dwarf, Nikabrik (The legendary Davis), and the badger, Trufflehunter (Stout). But not before Caspian blows the horn.
The horn has the power to summon the kings and queens of old back to Narnia. The Pevensies who one year later (despite all the kids looking like they've aged a lot more than a year), are living in 1940's WWII era London, are transplanted back to Narnia from a London subway station. Surprised by seeing how much has changed, they return to their old home when they were rulers, and seek to get to the bottom of what has happened to Narnia. They soon align themselves with Caspian and the remaining Narnian creatures in order to gain freedom from the Telmarines, depose Miraz, and have Caspian take place at the throne.
The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe was a totally enjoyable, fun fantasy movie. Prince Caspian goes for a much more intense and dark type of story, thought it doesn't totally work. The Pevensie children are not as drawn out as they were in the previous movie. Peter's angry and frustrated, but it's never really revealed why. He and Caspian don't always see eye to eye, and frequently clash.
Edmund as a character doesn't do very much in comparison to the last movie. He mainly just stands on the side and says clever things here and there. Susan has a very contrived romantic subplot with Prince Caspian that doesn't really work, and really only seems to be there to please the Disney channel brats.
The other big problem with the movie is that it feels like we are waiting too long just for Aslan to come and save the day. Lucy claims they just need to get Aslan to come and help, after seeing Aslan and asking for help, Aslan says, "Nothing ever happens the same way twice," yet . . . it ultimately does. Aslan's presence in The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe came off as more organic to the story than in Prince Caspian.
The battle sequences, specifically the siege of the Telmarine castle, and the final battle looked very impressive and well done. It just feels like a lot of the more important character scenes were left on the cutting room floor to focus more on the action. Definitely one of the more inspired scenes in the movie is when Caspian in a vulnerable corner agrees to an alternative solution in achieving his goal. For Nikabrik, that is resurrecting The White Queen, with help from a hag and a were-wolf.
The 411: Prince Caspian as a movie unfortunately doesn't work quite as well as The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe. Provided it performs to expectations, moviegoers can certainly look forward to future efforts from the series, with the next movie being The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of The Dawn Treader, tentatively set for release in 2010.
"British people using Spanish accents doesn't always work." I haven't seen the movie yet or anything, but all i know that a great mexican actor (Damian Alcazar) has a role as one of the bad guys i think, do you mean his accent by the title? or there's more?
Posted By: blahumbug (Guest) on May 17, 2008 at 05:12 PM
I was referring to Ben Barnes as Prince Caspian really.
Posted By: Jeffrey Harris (Registered) on May 17, 2008 at 07:39 PM
as a fan of cs lewis i was really looking forward to this movie. as a whole it was entertaining, but i felt the storyline lost steam on more than one occasion, and some of the musical score (especially during the end sequence) were horrible additions that really took me out the whole mindset that prince caspian was trying to convey. all in all, a decent film. i think the 7 rating you gave it was right on the money.
Posted By: hellboysetsfire (Guest) on May 17, 2008 at 10:21 PM
I enjoyed this movie, I believe more so then the first. I think the first movie may have been better technically, but I think this movie was easier to watch if that makes any sense. I was surprised at the humor that came through in this movie as well. Really, anything with Peter Dinklage has to be success.
Posted By: Andy Clark (Registered) on May 18, 2008 at 01:45 AM
I can certainly understand that, since this was a much more action packed movie. There were a lot bigger, and more ambitious action sequences in this one. And they worked for the most part and looked really well done.
Some of the humor though felt a little too out of place and forced to me.
Posted By: Jeffrey Harris (Registered) on May 18, 2008 at 01:52 AM
This movie was awesome. I am an English major, therefore a fanatic on C.S Lewis, Chronicle of Narnia series. This movie is clearly two thumbs up and it deserves at least 9.0 rating. Hey that's just my opinion.
Posted By: REBEL (Guest) on May 19, 2008 at 04:55 AM
Um, I'm pretty sure the film took place in Narnia, not Spain.
Now if you're saying that Ben Barnes performed a bad TELMARINE accent then maybe it'd make a bit more sense, despite them being a fictional race and all.
Posted By: Dewey Cox the Hard Walker (Guest) on May 24, 2008 at 02:33 PM
Terrific movie! Much better than the first one. I give it a rating of 9.
Posted By: RT (Guest) on May 25, 2008 at 09:39 AM
Whatever, it seemed to be implied that the Telmarines were Spaniard pirates. In terms of the story, they were descendants of human beings who existed in "our" world but went through one of the portals or whatever and invaded Narnia.
Posted By: Jeffrey Harris (Registered) on May 26, 2008 at 11:57 PM
And after hundreds of years interacting with the Narnians and just continuing their own race, the accent would be exactly the same when even the name of their people changed?
Posted By: Dewey Cox the Drifter (Guest) on May 27, 2008 at 08:57 PM
What interaction? They attempted genocide and extermination of all Narnians.
Spaniards still spoke Spanish for hundreds of years after landing on the other side of the hemisphere and started "interacting" with the indigenous people did they not?
Posted By: Jeffrey Harris (Registered) on May 28, 2008 at 10:53 PM
