Narnia's Prince Caspian still charms
By Vanessa Ho
While the first Chronicles of Narnia movie The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was magical and whimsical, the second installment, Prince Caspian¸ is darker, filled with great epic battles against good and evil and a little something something between Caspian (Ben Barnes) and Susan Pevensie (Anna Popplewell).
Andrew Adamson takes the helm again as director and adaptor. He does follow C.S. Lewis' 256 page novel to a tee but has to fatten the story up in order to fill out the film's over two our running time.
He does it by adding battle sequences, while grand to behold, weren't in the books. However, to his credit, these scenes do serve a purpose to the general story.
Prince Caspian opens up with the birth of a son for King Miraz (Sergio Castellito), which spells trouble for his nephew Caspian, who is heir to the throne of Narnia. He is woken up in the middle of the night by his tutor, Doctor Cornelius (Vincent Grass), to flee his uncle's castle and his given Queen Susan's magical horn to use when he needs help. As he flees deep in the forest and encounters trouble and blows Susan's horn.
Back in England, the Pevensie children, Peter (William Moseley), Susan, Edmund(Skander Keyes) and Lucy (Georgie Henley) are waiting to board the Tube to go to boarding school but are magically pulled into a tunnel that brings that back to Narnia.
They soon discover the ruins of their home Cair Paravel and find out that while a year has passed in their world, 1300 years passed in Narnia time. And in that time, a race called the Telmarines invaded Narnia shortly after the Pevensies left Narnia and the world that the Pevensies knew has become a more "savage place then they remembered" according to their dwarf ally Trumpkin (played wonderfully by Peter Dinklage).
Soon a battle ensues with the Pevensies, Caspian and the Narnian's joining forces to bring down Miraz and his army to bring peace back to Narnia with maybe with the help of Aslan (voiced by Liam Neeson).
The film is filled with wonderful special effects, in particular the scene were Lucy encounters the tree people but at times, it seemed that Adamson wanted to cram the movie with as much special effects as possible like the river scene at the climax of one of the battles.
Barnes is a find as Caspian but does a weird European accent that seems out of place and not at all how I imagined the character when reading the book. All the Pevensie children had definitely matured as performers, especially little Henley, in her scenes with Aslan. Keyes has also matured in his performance of Edmund from the last film. This is evident in his interaction with his siblings.
Popplewell and Moseley were particularly bad asses in all their battle scenes, rocking the bow and arrow and sword respectively. I also really enjoyed the chemistry between Barnes and Popplewell and even though a "romance" between Caspian and Susan wasn't in the novel, I ate it up even knowing that it won't go anywhere in future movie adaptations.
Caspian wasn't as magical as the first Narnia film but here's hoping the magic will continue with Voyage of the Dawn Treader coming out in 2010.
