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")

This movie isn't half as charming or eloquently magical as the first, but it engages nonetheless.

There's something about the young actors chosen to play the four major roles- Peter, Edmund, Susan and Lucy. They badly make you wish you were in their shoes. The film in itself is often reminiscent of LOTR, but the major difference being in a childlike simplicity this one retains.

Aslan, despite not having much of a role, manages to be the most striking character, and Lucy is as lovable as she was in the first film.

The battle scenes are brilliant, as are the landscapes. The power politics and senselessness of violence are dealt with a lot maturely in this film as compared to the first installment. At some point you realize you want at least a dozen more films revolving around these four siblings, and to be able to access Narnia for ever.

The only thing that ruins this film is this strange invasion of Hollywood-like romance as a very annoying little subplot, and the sudden intrusion of a ridiculous song at a climactic point.

Apart from that, I am pretty sure any fantasy-hound would enjoy this film a lot, and especially so if you're a big Lewis fan.

I know I am.

The picture is an extraordinary story with noisy adventures, marvelous fantasy , wonderful scenarios and pretty amusing . Full of action , excitement , entertainment and with an incredible battle scenes similar to ¨Lord of the Rings¨. Fun second part with rousing adventures , incredible monsters and dazzling fights . C.S. Lewis' classic is reborn in this second outing about 'The Chronicles of Narnia' when four children from war-torn England find themselves transported to a land of myth and fantasy . Return to magic , return to hope , return to Narnia . Some journeys take us far from home . Some adventures lead us to our destiny . It begins during German air raids over London in WWII . Four kids travel through underground to the land of Narnia and learn of their destiny to free it and help Prince Caspian . Lucy (George Henley) , Edmund Pevensie (Skandar Keynes) , Susan and Peter return to Narnia where they meet up with Prince Caspian (Ben Barnes) for an impressive battle against dark forces . Along the way they encounter dragons , dwarfs (Peter Dinklage , Warwick Davis) , merfolk, and a band of lost warriors . A fantastic world with fauns and centaurs and where animals speaking , giant mice , beaver , bear , fox , among others . The children are the chosen ones , according an ancient prophecy, and they team up with Aslem , the mighty Lion and real king of Narnia , fighting to defeat a nasty king in an epic finale battle . Then , all of them go throughout the fantastic world and where animals speaking as a likable giant swords-rat , a bull and many others . It has been foretold that they will bring peace to Narnia with the guidance of the mystical lion . They must survive the evil treachery of an usurper king named Miraz (Sergio Castellitto) , his barons , Lord Sopespian (Damián Alcázar) , General Glozelle (Pierfrancesco Favino) and the mysterious White Witch (Tilda Swinton, she also makes a short cameo as a centaur) locked in ice who still claims to be Queen . They team up with Aslan (Liam Neeson ; ¨Aslan" means "lion" in Turkish), the mighty Lion , fighting to defeat the evil in an epic finale battle against a huge army .

This exciting movie has amazing fantasy, breathtaking adventures , groundbreaking battles and awesome FX , as the film contains over 1500 special effects shots, more than its predecessor's 800 effects shots . In this impressive production , C.S. Lewis' imagination is brought to life with top-drawer computer generator special effects . Although C.S. Lewis wrote "Prince Caspian" second, it is actually the fourth book of "The Chronicles of Narnia . This agreeable story is lavishly produced by Andrew Adamson from ¨Shrek trilogy¨ and Mark Johnson , along with C.S. Lewis' stepson and heir Douglas Gresham was co-producer on this film and its predecessor . The pic is a magic story with rip-snorting adventures , overwhelming fantasy , state-of-art FX , sensational scenarios and good feeling . Plenty of action and emotion with incredible battle scenes , thrills , actions and brief touches of humor . Provide enough amusement to keep the hands on your seat and dazzling eyes until the epic ending . In spite of overlong runtime and the difficult of adapting , the film still managing to keep a quick enough pace for those unfamiliar with the fantastic saga . Sympathetic performances for all casting and including a top-notch support cast . The film displays a colorful and evocative cinematography by Karl Walter Lindenlaub filmed on location ; although parts of the film were made in New Zealand like its predecessor, the majority of shooting took place in Czech, Slovenia and Poland because of the larger sets available . Rousing musical score fitting perfectly to the action-adventure by Harry Gregson-Williams . The motion picture was marvelously directed by Andrew Adamson , he's the director,producer, writer of ¨Shrek¨ trilogy . Adamson found a way to have the film stand on its own by adding a grand scale castle battle to the storyline, to make this film more epic and action oriented ; he made this second trip to Narnia bigger and more overblown than the first. Although this film was quite successful , it was far from the blockbuster success of the first film , as a result , Disney declined co-production on the rest of the series . Rating : Above average and worthwhile seeing , the whole family will enjoy this film . It's a very likable adventure-fantasy and enormously appealing for kids, adolescents and young men . Overall this is a really nice movie . If you are familiar with the story, then there are no real surprises, but makes up for it with overwhelming CGI animation.

This was the second installment , the first entry was the following : ¨The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and Wardrobe¨ (2005) by Andrew Adamson with Georgie Henley as Lucy Pevensie , Skandar Keynes as Edmund Pevensie , William Moseley as Peter Pevensie , Anna Popplewell as Susan Pevensie , Tilda Swinton as White Witch , James McAvoy as Mr. Tumnus and Jim Broadbent as Professor Kirke ; the third entry was ¨The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader¨ (2010) by Michael Apted with Ben Barnes as Caspian , Will Poulter as Eustace Scrubb , Gary Sweet as Drinian , Bruce Spence , Bille Brown as Coriakin Laura Brent as Liliandil , Rachel Blakely as Gael's Mum and Nathaliel Parker as father's 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.

As a little girl, I adored the Chronicles of Narnia books, and I still do. I also liked the BBC adaptations, done in mini-series format, they weren't amazing, but they were enjoyable and stuck to the books' spirit. As far as these film versions go, I haven't yet seen Voyage of the Dawn Treader, but I enjoyed Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. Prince Caspian was not a bad film, but it could have been better.

Visually, the film is very well done. I loved the cinematography, while the scenery and costumes are gorgeous. The effects are also good, and Aslan still looks brilliant. The music is beautiful too, with lovely melodies. The end credits song was nice, but I think it should have stayed as an end credits song, it didn't seem right placing it in the final scene to me. The direction is decent too, while the battle sequences are riveting, and the film did begin well.

As far as the acting goes, it wasn't bad but it wasn't amazing either. The best are Eddie Izzard who is spot on, Peter Dinklage who comes close to stealing the film with his eyes alone and Liam Neeson who lends his majestic voice to Aslan, and while her appearance is very brief Tilda Swinton is quite chilling. The four leads are good enough, and in Georgie Henley's case improved. Edmund also has potential. I had mixed feelings on Miraz though, more to how he was written than how he was acted. Sergio Castellitto does make an effort to make Miraz dark and charismatic for the villain of the piece, but the way Miraz is written and developed makes him come across as insipid. The weak link is Ben Barnes. He is handsome and has his moments, but he is rather bland on the whole.

My real problems with Prince Caspian are in the storytelling and pace mainly. The story has a tendency to become too unengaging, the more involving scenes are well done but the slower scenes are close to ponderous. The pace is rather lethargic this time round, while I don't think the film really needed to be as long as it was and the characters come across as shallow. Also particularly with Caspian and Miraz, some of the dialogue is stilted.

All in all, Prince Caspian is not a bad film, but it lacked something. I also forgot to say as an adaptation of the book it is not great, granted the book was not my favourite of the series but I felt sometimes there was a bit too much padding that could have been excised slightly. A disappointment, but on its own terms and for the visuals and music it is worth a look. 6/10 Bethany Cox