THE second instalment in the Narnia franchise, adapted from CS Lewis's novels, sees the return of the four London schoolchildren to the parallel universe they first visited via the back of a wardrobe. In Prince Caspian, however, the kids are almos
t an afterthought to a King Arthur-style battle for leadership of the kingdom.
THE second instalment in the Narnia franchise, adapted from CS Lewis's novels, sees the return of the four London schoolchildren to the parallel universe they first visited via the back of a wardrobe. In Prince Caspian, however, the kids are almost an afterthought to a King Arthur-style battle for leadership of the kingdom.
It is now ruled by tyrannical King Miraz, whose wife has just produced a son, rendering superfluous the rightful heir to the throne, Prince Caspian (Ben Barnes, looking like Orlando Bloom but sounding like Antonio Banderas). Narrowly escaping his death sentence by fleeing into the woods, Caspian, in his darkest hour, discovers a magic horn. Blowing it summons the four Pevensie children out of their 1941 tube station and back to Narnia. This is both a good and bad thing.
The young actors from The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe never plumb the enunciated awfulness of the Harry Potter kids, but they are still pretty stilted. The formerly treacherous Edmund (Skandar Keynes) is now a loyal second to his older brother Peter (William Moseley), who resents being a regular teen again after having already lived to adulthood as golden-boy High King of Narnia. Susan (Anna Popplewell) is fending off schoolboys smitten by her Hannah Montana looks, while only Lucy (Georgie Henley) is the slightest bit lively and endearing. Nor is this the same Narnia the Pevensies knew before; it's only a year since their last adventure but in Narnia 1,300 years have passed. The country's golden age is over, and the picture is rather good at portraying both the ruined grandeur of their former palace and the Narnians' dismay that their legendary kings and queens are a quartet of children. However, what follows is a plod through a PG series of bloodless and repetitive battles between good and evil, like players ascending the levels of a video game.
Prince Caspian takes a multiplex approach to CS Lewis, rejecting much of the quiet fluency of the books. Instead, the film loads up on imagery borrowed from The Lord Of The Rings, with New Zealand once again providing the sprawling ancient landscapes. The lengthy battle sequences – including one not imagined by Lewis – also have the familiar look of Middle Earth's busy, non-specific CGI clashes, with perambulating trees and a truculent dwarf (The Station Agent's Peter Dinklage). The only reason we don't have hobbits is presumably because they couldn't process the biometric passports in time. Plugging other basic fantasy fiction needs are Ken Stott voicing an unconvincing talking badger, and Eddie Izzard as Reepicheep, a swashbuckling mouse whose role seems close to that of Puss in Boots in Shrek (which Narnia's Andrew Adamson also directed), plus assorted centaurs, werewolves and fauns.
There are also some seriously anachronistic exchanges between these children of the 1940s and the medieval-ish Narnian Prince ("I've got it sorted"), and Susan develops a bit of a crush on Caspian, which is scarcely surprising, given that he possesses the doe-eyed looks and superb hair that could earn him a centrefold in Lisa Simpson's favourite magazine, Non-Threatening Boys.
It's a handsome film but a gruelling one to watch, with its endless battles, flat adventure and righteous theology about holding on to faith, even when your godlike talking lion (Liam Neeson) doesn't show up for most of the movie.
Mind you, Aslan doesn't perk up the film half as much as the Narnian devil that is the White Witch (Tilda Swinton), whose brief appearance is like the answer to a bored viewer's prayer. This may not be the spiritual message the movie's Christian billionaire backer Philip Anschutz was hoping for.
On general release from FridayThe full article contains 685 words and appears in Scotland On Sunday newspaper.
