The recent rush, post Rings and Potter, to get any possible fantasy-themed children’s book onto the screen – for every success (The Bridge to Terabithia, Spiderwicke Chronicles) there seems to be a corresponding failure (The Dark is Rising) and lets not even think about Eragon. The first Narnia movie, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe kind of fell in the middle – it was faithful enough to the book to keep fans (and the American Bible Belt) happy enough to bring huge commercial success as a the Christmas family movie of choice, but if we’re honest, it was a wee bit of a flat adaptation.
Caspian has several obstacles to overcome – firstly the best performances in the first film came from James McAvoy’s Mr Tumnus (now long dead) and Tilda Swinton’s white witch (reduced to the briefest of appearances here, but still a highlight). Secondly, this is not such a well-known or well-loved novel.
The good news is that director Andrew Adamson has improved on the first film. You come away from Prince Caspian with a much greater sense of Narnia as a believable world with more substance. As seems inevitably the way, the sequel is “darker” – the addition of more human roles bringing with it plots and intrigues a plenty, but also making the whole more engaging and interesting. The human city and castle add a more distinctive flavour to the visuals as well.
The battle scenes are also more impressive that in movie 1, but those who have seen Lord of the Rings will both feel a sense of deja-vu and a feeling that Narnia is still an inferior copy in many respects. I stopped trying to count how many shots were directly borrowed or strongly influenced by Rings.
The films major weakness remains the older children, especially William Mosely as Peter, whose performance creaks badly. And as he is required to shoulder the main character arc and moral development in the film, that’s quite a major flaw. Of the other youngsters, newcomer Ben Barnes (in the title role) and Anna Popplewell (Susan) are reduced to exchanging moody/meaningful glances at each other. Whilst the younger children, Georgie Henley (Lucy) and especially Skandar Keynes (Edmund) are better but given far too little to do.
Instead, the real stars of the movie turn out to be Peter Dinklage as the dwarf Trumpkin and Eddie Izzard voicing Reepicheep, the swashbuckling mouse. Together they inject some much needed life and humour into proceedings. Which bodes well for the next film, Voyage of the Dawn Treader, where Reepicheep should play a much larger role. Unfortunately, Liam Neeson’s Aslan remains peculiarly flat and unengaging.
Overall – 3/5. It’s an improvement, but in movie terms Narnia’s not quite there yet. Promising signs for Voyage of the Dawn Treader, where the lack of big battles might move us more away from the Rings trilogy.
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