The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (***)

Directed by: Andrew Adamson (Shrek 1 & 2, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe)
Starring: Ben Barnes, Peter Dinklage, Original Narnia Children
Seen: June 7th 2008

*** Out of ****

To start I’ll first confess this – I hated the first Narnia movie. The children were annoying beyond redemption, the special effects were substandard, the props looked plastic, and the film was performed for 4 year-olds. Which, I’m very pleased to say – all disappeared in this second instalment.

The Pevensie kids are at it again, this time being recalled to Narnia after one year back in normal England. But when they get to Narnia the time since they left is not 1 year, it’s 1300 years. And things are not the same anymore – Narnia has become a much more brutal environment. Governemnt officials now scheme and cheat and murder to get ahead. The old castle is an almost unrecognisable ruin, and Narnia has become suppressed – and even the hero of the story, Prince Caspian, while fleeing for his life from his uncle Miraz, sees the Narnians as a threat, instead of his allies.

Miraz wants to kill Caspian in order to become Narnia’s king – and in his fear Caspian blows a magical horn to summon help. This help turns out to be the Pevensie’s and they are whisked away from a London train station back to Narnia. Once there they set of on a mission – and Lucy starts glimpsing Aslan, but only Edmund believes her. While the children set off on their new quest, which they do not even know about, Caspian is introduced to the Narnians in hiding, and he starts enlisting their help for the battle to come.

The first battle claims the lives of a substantial group of Narnians, and Peter and Caspian almost come to blows in their misery. Here they all unite in their goal of giving Narnia back to its people as the big battle looms. The battle is done with great composure, something that was sorely lacking in the first Narnia film. The trees (reminiscent of the Ents in the Lord of the Rings films) were done fantastically, and I firmly believe that this was the way it should have been done in Lord of the Rings, since the Ents pretty much summed up what I did not enjoy in The Two Towers.

Altogether this is a much darker film than the first one, and it’s all the better for it. I am convinced that presenting a film with an overload of fluffy sweetness (like Narnia 1, barring the White Witch) can never measure up to a film that confronts the evil head-on and deals with it in a realistic way (even be it only in the context of the story), which this Narnia definitely does. Highly recommendable.