The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian

When Queen Prunaprismia (Alicia Borrachero) delivers a baby boy, King Miraz (Sergio Castellitto) orders his soldiers to kill Prince Caspian (Ben Barnes); however his tutor gives Susan's magic horn to him telling that he should blow is his life is in danger and asks him to ride to the forest. However he is chased by the Telmarian soldiers and he summons the Pevensie siblings. They discover that hundred of years have passed in Narnia and they join Prince Caspian to lead the people of Narnia against the evil King Miraz. When the battle begins, the siblings send Lucy to seek out Aslan, otherwise they will not win the powerful Telmarian army.

I expected to like "The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian" more than I did. The special effects are top-notch, but the story has a poor development of characters and the unoriginal final battle gives a sensation of déjà vu to the viewer with the excessive use of CGI. But the greatest problem is the weak lead cast: the four siblings and Prince Caspian are performed by the wooden and unknown young actors and actresses that are too weak for the lead roles. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "As Crônicas de Nárnia – Príncipe Caspian" ("The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian")

I am that rare person who managed to read Prince Caspian without having read The LWW. I have seen the first film and believe the last 15 minutes reasonably reflected the Pevensie children as I imagined them from reading the second book. I'm afraid the liberties taken by this film version distort the family relationships as well as rendering other characters completely unfaithful in that context. Enough about the authenticity of the film.

There has been a fair amount of criticism of this film's actors on this board. As an eldest child I feel compelled to defend the actor portraying Peter as he can hardly have recognised the character he was playing from the book. Whether he appreciated the changes made to Peter or not, he was acting blind, and, surely, it is up to the director to ensure that there is an appropriate consistency in the portrayal. The character presented makes absolutely no sense when compared with the character developed at the end of the first film. To suggest he is having difficulty adapting to being a physical child again is a real stretch. The other children's roles are a tad more consistent with the written word though there is a 21st century knowing about all of them that causes them to lose the sense of wonder necessary. The portrayal of Caspian is also dumbed down, as if, children are no longer expected to imagine the breadth of personality and mixed emotions reflected in the book.

As usual I ended up enjoying certain elements of the film because of its visual nature (New Zealand excels again), but, now is the time to challenge the children of the world's imaginations rather than spoon feed them this shallower version.

It was on a sudden decision that I went with a group of friends to a 9:10 showing of this film that, at the time of this review, was yesterday. I had quite enjoyed the first Narnia, but upon seeing this one, I felt kind of blah. Most of my friends felt the same way. Don't get me wrong, the film is well put together. The visuals are impeccable, the production design is well done, the costumes look great, and the actors do fine. Unfortunately, the material seems to be lacking.

One year has passed in our time, but 1300 years have passed in Narnia. Since the four Penvensie children left, Narnia has been overcome by the evil Telemarines, who have banished all Narnians. Now, the evil king Miraz hopes to permanently establish the Telemarine stronghold, but his throne is threatened by his nephew Prince Caspian. Miraz orders the boy to be murdered, but Caspian escapes, and inadvertently calls for help. This is where the Penvensie children come in, as they are whisked away from London back to Narnia, to restore balance in a now grittier land.

You would think that with a title like "Prince Caspian," the filmmakers would work to make our hero well rounded. Unfortunantely, they really don't. The whole backstory involving the raising of Prince Caspian from the novel has been cut, making our hero less 3-dimensional than we would want him to be. The filmmakers have also seemed to believe that since we got to know the children in the first movie, we don't need much characterization involving them again. King Miraz looks like the bad guy version of King Leonidas from "300," and his motives seem muddled. Not until the end of the film did I really feel his evil presence, and by then, it was hard for me to start fearing him. The result is that we, as the audience, don't feel very involved with the story. There are characters, some good, some bad, but you are not entirely sure what their motives are.

As far as the acting goes, I was fine. There were no standouts with this movie like there was with Tilda Swinton in the last one. Part of this I blame on lacking material.

Since we are not involved with the characters or with the story, all we can do is watch the nice stuff that has been put on screen. Simply put, this is a well put together film that doesn't have a whole lot of material backing it up.

Hopefully the new director for "The Dawn Treader" will do better.

In some ways I think film makers who create films based off of beloved books have a hard and thankless job. They must balance the creation of a film that anyone can like while still remaining faithful to the subject matter for the fans of the books. Adamson did this brilliantly in the first Narnia movie creating a rich and deep world faithful to the book while still bringing in those who never did read it. Unfortunately he missed the mark sorely with Prince Caspian.

I tried very hard to separate this film from the book but came up with the conclusion that one can not do that in cases like this. True, movies are never better then the book so you have to go in expecting changes, however this film is so far from the book that if the characters names were changed one would never know it was a Narnia based story. The film felt more like a story someone else wrote and simply pasted names and small scenes from Lewis's book to make it fit the mythos.

First things I like... Miraz was great! He was evil and developed in ways he wasn't in the book and I thought it was fantastic. I also liked how we got to know Miraz general Glozelle. That character showed a man who was on the wrong side but still had honor. He was worthy of what he receives at the end of the movie and was a great addition not included in the book.

Now on with the problems. One of the biggest was the dialog. Long gone is the intelligent flow of language and in its place is a modern interpretation of how people should talk to fit in with todays youth. The children and animals say "Shut up" while the dwarfs pipe up with "Ya gotta be kidding." It is clear that this script was not from the book and was from someone else's work not Lewis's.

Peter and Caspian are not the noble characters impacted by their experience and worthy of leading the Narnians. Peter starts off the film as a whining young man, a mere imitation of the young man we saw in the first film. Peter has little growth from that point never showing any consideration of growth. In fact by the end of the film there is no love for Peter or belief that he is a high King. Caspian is not much better. Caspian lacks humility and any true endearing quality until the end of the film when he admits he feels unworthy to lead (one of the few lines from the book). This moment comes far to late for us to believe there is anything genuine behind it.

The romance between Caspian and Susan is so forced it becomes painful at times. The entire love aspect adds nothing to the characters and merely adds grown factor to poor character development.

Attempts are made at creating drama over the four kids sudden disappearance from Narnia but there is no follow through. Several things have this half thought out feel to them making you wonder if the writers felt Lewis didn't know how to write about characters.

One of the biggest issues is that the lynch-pin for the entire Narnia series is missing for most of the film, Aslan. Aslan is never really referenced through out the first two thirds of the film. The Narnias never mention him or even recognize that he is the major influence for their entire nation. There is a hint at the situation from the book in which the children deal with the fact that only Lucy can see him but what Lewis used to show growth and a major issue of the children's growth in this story is blown over and turned into a three minute trek and dream sequence.

One of my biggest problems is when Lucy tells Peter that a possible reason that Aslan has not appeared is that he is seeing if they are worthy of him showing up. I was very angry at this statement because if there is one thing the first movie showed us and the books make clear it was that Aslan worked for those he cared for, not because of their deeds but because of who he is. Aslan was treated poorly and we lost all sight of the great lion who was loved as a great leader and king from the first film.

All in all I think this film suffers from some one else writing the story they think should have been done, not interpreting the story that was written.

Taking kids to the cinema can sometimes be painful but this trip was as much for me as them; i have read the book countless times and have just finished it with my eldest daughter.

The film was more LOTR than CS Lewis and don't know what he would have made of this interpretation. There was just enough in common with the book as to transfer the empathy that i have built with the characters over the last 25 years. There were some changes and original scenes that were totally unnecessary and the tone of the movie was much darker and action oriented than the book.

The upside is that aside from that it was a very well made film, almost up there with LOTR in terms of great fantasy and infinitely more appealing to anyone over 12 years old than Harry Potter.

After fictitiously originating the pevensies from finchley in the 1st movie, he has now made the telmarines Spanish and that sort of worked OK. The pevensies and caspian were close to what i would have imagined and the supporting cast of dwarfs and mice were excellent.

Another 2 years to wait till Voyage of the Dawntreader; would have liked to have seen Horse and his boy next. Mind you, in theory that could be done in 10 years time with the same actors.

All in all, a great improvement on the lion, the witch and the wardrobe.