MOVIE REVIEW: Prince Caspian

Saw The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian on Friday at the Americana at Brand in Glendale on Friday.


Of course I had read the Narnia books as a kid although I must confess I had forgotten the details of most of them and unlike the Lord of the Rings or Dune novels I felt no compulsion to re-read the books before seeing the film adaptations.


In the case of Prince Caspian this is probably ill-advised because during the movie this revieweer constantly had the curious (and discomfiting) feeling of "Why don't I recognize this story if these books are so famous?" which is exactly the opposite of what I felt during watching any of the Lord of the Rings films or even the first Narnia film, The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe which was quite enjoyable.


Although they both Narnia films were rated PG (and NOT PG-13 like the Lord of the Rings movies were) in Prince Caspian the restrictions of more juvenile rating were overwhelmingly evident.


As many of the other (not very positive) reviews of Prince Caspian have made clear, it is essentially a war movie. The war is between the invading Telmarines against the Narnians, who the Telmarines believe are basically extinct due to the 1300-year-long occupation. The problem is that wars often involve violence and killing and are not exactly family-friendly affairs. So how does director Andrew Adamson (Shrek, Shrek 2, Narnia #1) deal with this dilemma? He produces a war film with almost no violence, danger, death or blood. In so doing, he instantly makes any combat scenes completely devoid of verisimilitude or suspense. Do we really think our young child heroes will get injured? Well, no, because no one seems to get injured very badly in this film. For an adult viewer, this is a laughably fatal flaw.

How does Ben Barnes do in his first major starring role? Well, he looks serviceably attractive (princely, if you must), but unfortunately he is saddled with a Telmarine accent, which sounds like an unnatural blend of Greek or Italian.

The child actors playing the Pevensies children return and this time around are given far less to do than in the first film--there is almost no character development, instead there is a pissing match between the oldest boy (Peter, played with butch blond petulance by William Moseley) and the aforementioned Caspian.

The overall impression is one of an over-long, bland sequel with little appeal to adults or people who have not (re)read the Narnia books recently.


GRADE: B-.