The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian Review

‘Prince Caspian’ is Neither the Epic nor
the Faithful Adaptation its Predecessor Was

-----When Narnia is again in danger, the Pevinsie children are quite literally sucked back into Narnia. Thrilled to be returning to their once homeland, the children quickly realize it’s not the place they left behind. An evil king has claimed the throne from the rightful heir, young Prince Caspian. All of this is on top of the fact that hundreds of years have passed in Narnia. The magical creatures of Old Narnia have been forced into hiding, their castle is mere ruins, and their previous lives and friends are long lost legends.

-----Ben Barnes plays the role of Prince Caspian, though he hardly finds himself the star of the film despite it being named after him. He is forced into a side role where little is really learned about him or his motivations, both of which are lavishly explored in the original book. William Moseley returns as Peter, seeming to have lost much of his knowledge and leadership abilities in his time away from Narnia. Much of this comes by way of leadership conflict with Caspian due to a failed surprise attack on the King. Neither the attack nor the clash of leadership were in the original novel, namely because Caspian was a mere adolescent in the book, but is portrayed as man about Peter’s age in the movie. Skandar Keynes returns as the much matured and humbled Edmund, who, due to the film’s unbalance and shaky adaptation, seems more fit to lead than Peter or Caspian. Georgie Henley returns as innocent peacekeeper Lucy, doing exactly what she did in the original in a nice, and slightly more subtle role. Anna Popplewell also returns as Susan, rounding out the Pevinsie lot. She does basically what she did before too. And of course, it just wouldn’t be Narnia without Liam Neeson playing the voice of the ominous creator of Narnia, the lion himself, Aslan. However, he does have considerably less to do this time around.

-----While many of the franchises locations and effects continue to stun, the epic sense is nowhere to be seen in this sequel. The battles have lost their sense of urgency and instead seem to be meaningless, dutiful struggles. The book’s loose interpretation is a bad omen for this franchise teeming with potential. A lot of the problem comes from poor editing that leads to an unfortunate amount of misplaced scenes that seem off beat with the rest of the film, and an overall mess among cast member priority in this teen ensemble. Not to mention an odd number of night scenes that are covered in shadows to the point it’s hard to tell what’s going on, and the audience may even temporarily lose interest in the visually handicapping sequences. The biggest example of this comes during the opening sequence where Caspian escapes into the forest. However, despite these flaws among others, there are still plenty of entertaining moments in the movie, and having the main body of the cast return is always essential.

-----While this will hopefully be the weakest of the Narnia films to come, it still manages to entertain as long as there is a promise of more, hopefully more faithful material to come. If they can keep the cast together this can hopefully be a series that returns to be more than just cool effects and landscapes. One thing for sure is they’ll really need to get a handle on what made the original epic, especially when dealing with some of the slower, more character driven mid-series books. I hope to see more from this franchise and soon, because regardless of shortcomings here and there, in a world dominated by the ‘Harry Potter’ and ‘Twilight’ franchises, I’m always up for some good old fashioned stories of epic adventure and peril in the land of Narnia.