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One year after their adventures in Narnia the Pevensie kids Lucy (Georgie Henley), Edmund (Skandar Keynes), Peter (William Moseley) and Susan (Anna Popplewell) are summoned back to Narnia by Prince Caspian (Ben Barnes). In Narnia, 1300 years have passed, and it’s a different land now. The Telmarines have conquered Narnia, the Narnians are thought extinct and hiding in the woods, and the evil Miraz (Sergio Castellitto) plots to kill the legitimate heir of the King, Prince Caspian, and to usurp the throne of Narnia. The Kings and Queens of old, the Pevensie siblings, are the last hope for the Narnians and Prince Caspian.

The dull plot is only matched by the performances. The kids ain’t annoying – thank goodness! – and the script doesn’t give them much of a chance, but the heyday of acting it’s not. They have already lived a full life as kings and queens (in The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe), so you would expect them to do more than just looking in awe at artifacts of their previous adventures and bickering around until the script calls them to action. When they are challenged, the kids are as courageous as heros come, so much that even Daredevil, The Man without Fear, looks wimpish compared to them. But alas, the heroics are only in the script and in the action on the screen but the actors are rarely able to convey that heroic feelings. Ben Barnes and his hair-do happily blend into the Royal charisma-free zone.
The only character with a real royal bearing – the centaur Glenstorm (Cornell John) – unfortunately is content with following his King instead of leading, and suffers from an all too short screen-time. It’s telling when all the actors, heros and villains alike, are out-performed by a CGI-character – in Prince Caspian, it’s a swashbuckling CG-mouse called Reepicheep, voiced by Eddie Izzard, who steals every scene it’s in.
Some scenes – in particular the big battle – evoke memories of The Lord of the Rings – The Two Towers – the marching army of the Telmarine soldiers resembling the march of the Uruk-Hai, the army of the Narnians awaiting them in a cave the Rohirrim expecting the Uruks in Helm’s Deep, and when the Narnian trees join the battle you just can’t not think “Fangorn”. But woe betide! What a pitiful king and commander “High King” Peter is in comparison to King Theoden of Rohan or Aragorn!
With a hefty running time of 144 minutes and some rather violent scenes (though disneyfied and as bloodless as most of the acting) this may be too much for little kids, but is definitly underwhelming for the adult viewer.

The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian Movie Trailer

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 12th, 2008 at 3:18 pm and is filed under 2-star-movies, 3-star-movies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.