It is pretty much a requirement that sequels must delve into the darker places of the human soul and psyche than their predecessors, and that is true of Prince Caspian in spades. While returning director and screenwriter Andrew Adamson can lay some of the blame for that at the feet of C.S. Lewis, the original author, he takes the darkness much farther than Lewis ever did.
The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian is the kind of fantasy movie that I dreamed could be made when I was 14, and the movie is just about perfect for 14-year-old boys. It has violence (without gore). It has mythical creatures, talking bears, a clear separation of good from evil. And did I mention violence?
The original book keeps things simple. While the Pevensie children (Peter, Susan, Edward, and Lucy) have been back in WWII-era England for only a year, more than a millennium has passed in Narnia.
A chance at salvation for the Narnians opens when standard royal politics gets in the way. Prince Caspian X (Ben Barnes) has been raised by his regent uncle Miraz (Sergio Castellitto) since the death of King Caspian IX, but when a son is finally born to Miraz he decides it is time to dispatch the rightful heir so that he can take the throne.
Warned by his tutor, Caspian flees to the woods, the last stronghold of true Narnia where he finds that the Narnians aren’t as extinct as he thought, and ends up using a magic horn that summons The Queens and Kings of Old (the Pevensies) back from England. They all then work together to restore Narnia from under the heel of Telmarin corruption.
One change that Adamson and his fellow screenwriters (Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely) have made is in giving Peter a much deeper emotional role in the story. C.S. Lewis didn’t touch on it in his books, but it really is a good question to wonder about the reaction of a 16-year-old boy who gets transported to another world, spends decades as the ruler of a magical kingdom, and is then sent back home and expected to just be a teenager again.
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The answer, they decide, is not particularly well. Peter has a chip on his shoulder in
It’s also a good addition because the tension between Peter and Caspian for authority leads to the best sequence in the movie, and entirely new-for-the-movie attack on the Telmarin fortress by the Narnians. This fight makes the best use of the fantastical nature of the Narnian army and also results in the moment of greatest emotional seriousness. I don’t want to spoil it, but it is a very intense and potentially frightening sequence. It may very well be a good reason to parents to keep young children away from the theater. The movie is rated PG, but I can really only credit that to the reputation of the Walt Disney name.
While death is bloodless in this movie as in the last one, there is a lot of it. It happens on screen, and it happens to characters that the audience will identify with as individuals. If this movie were released by New Line, I suspect it would be rated PG-13. So if you’re on the border about such things, you may want to pre-screen it before taking children, test them out on The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, or gather reviews from fellow parents before committing.
Otherwise, the movie is very entertaining. The talking animals get less screen time for this one, with humans having much bigger roles. Peter Dinklage does solid work as a red dwarf, Trumpkin, who respects the kings and queens but has his doubts about the reality of Aslan. Sergio Castellitto chews scenery as Miraz, but in a good way that properly leaves you despising the character.
Ben Barnes as Prince Caspian is a key addition to the cast (since, if they get made, he’ll continue on into the next book The Voyage of the Dawn Trader) and despite having to work in an exaggerated accent (to blend in with his fellow Telmarins, mostly played by Italian and Spanish actors) he does an admirable job. He’s been setting tween hearts aflutter so far and time will tell if he can take up the Orlando Bloom spot in the pantheon of adolescent idols. If he promises to speak in his Caspian accent at all times, he has a strong chance at it.
There are really only three weaknesses in the movie. First, the special effects are generally fantastic and that just makes them stand out all the more when they’re weak. Background Narnians frequently have a half-finished look to them. The worst offender is a werewolf in a pivotal scene that, honestly, looked like a man wearing a dog costume bought at the local party supply store at 4:00p.m. on Halloween when all that was left was that or a sheet for going as a ghost. That may be pickiness on my part, though, since post-screening conversation showed many people never noticed anything of the issues I had.
Of slightly greater significance is the humor. Despite the generally serious tone of the movie there are several moments of humor, many provided by a noble (and very large) mouse name Reepicheep. Reepicheep and his fellow mice are direct descendents of the very mice that chewed the ropes off of Aslan in the first story, and they take that heritage very seriously. Much humor is sought from the idea of mice as master swordsmen bringing down human and other large creatures. It tends to go a bit too far, though, and I found the voice work by British comedian Eddie Izzard to be distractingly jaunty. You’ll see many comparisons of Reepicheep to the Puss in Boots character from another Adamson-directed film, Shrek 2, and it is neither inapt nor quite appropriate for the overall tone of the movie.
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The third weakness is, in my opinion, a big one—but also one that most audience members will not notice, nor care if they do. While giving added depth to Caspian and Peter, the role of Lucy and her faith in Aslan is given short shrift. Whether because time simply ran out or of a general resistance to focusing too much on the source material’s Christian allegory, this element of the story is ignored until all of a sudden it becomes the most important thing in the movie. Reduced from being a theme to simply deus ex machina, it no longer carries any emotional weight. But no 12-year-old will mind, and most 30-year-olds won’t.
Despite these flaws, Prince Caspian is a fun, intense experience. It pushes the edges of appropriate viewing for younger children, but it is hard to imagine walking out of the theater feeling like money was wasted. The great scenery from
The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian is a Walt Disney Pictures release
- Wide release on May 16
- Directed by Andrew Adamson
- Screenplay by Andrew Adamson, Christopher Markus, and Stephen McFeely
- Starring: Ben Barnes, William Moseley, Anna Popplewell, Skander Keynes, Georgie Henley, Sergio Castellitto
- Rated PG for epic battle action and violence.
- Alex’s Rating: 8 out of 10
