Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian
Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian
Catch it on HBO
The short version: Prince Caspian (the movie) is gorgeous and a total snore. All the best effects houses worked on the computer and practical effects. The locations are in the stunning environments of the Czech Republic, Poland, and New Zealand. Every dollar of that budget is on that screen, trembling to blow your mind. Aslan looks more real than ever. Only the centaurs suffer from a discomfiting uncanny valley effect to their gait – quite a feat considering there are no real-life centaurs to compare them to. Caspian himself is a perfect fantasy novel prince. He’s handsome, confident, vulnerable, delicate, smoldering, flawed, blameless, with lush hair and a lusher accent. All this beauty in the service of another empty Spectacular Spectacular makes me weep for the craftsmen.
Interpreting novels soaked in metaphor and symbolism and allegory is hard enough (see The Golden Compass, or better yet, just read it), but the screenwriters chose to whitewash C.S. Lewis’ Christian-themed epic by eliminating much of the plot and character stuff that makes a story a story. Instead, the film focuses on a series of foregone-conclusion battle or chase scenes. It’s great to see the locations, the meticulously crafted sets and props and costumes and effects. It’s lovely to the point of distraction – crystalline blue rivers trickling like dreams through dense primeval forests, bearing handsome people squinting purposefully into the golden sun. But this Chronicle of Narnia has excised the element that makes these books the classics that they are - heart and faith – in favor of empty, bloodless action and grandeur.
None of the actors are at fault. Our original 4 leads (Georgie Henley, Skandar Keynes, William Moseley, and Anna Popplewell) still hold their characters’ base qualities despite being little more than rooks and knights in a huge territorial battle that does not involve them. Warwick Davis, nearly invisible under makeup in the Harry Potter movies, gets one of the few developed characters in the movie (Nikabrik), followed by Peter Dinklage as Trumpkin. Sergio Castellitto (Miraz) does some fine chewing of his delectable scenery as the evil Telmarine usurping Caspian’s throne.
The music is nice, I suppose – I didn’t notice it one way or another until the very end when – DISNEY PLEASE STOP DOING THIS! – a horrible contemporary pop song begins playing over the end action. I have no idea why Disney thinks this is something anyone wants ruining movie after movie, particularly those set in a time and place very removed from our own. The mood is ruined, the songs are terrible, and it just stains the whole already strained proceedings. After eliminating much of the story and therefore failing to engage us, the least you can do, Disney, is not chase us out of the theatre on a crappy song. That long list of names at the end did some great work but we can’t bear to stay in the room to respect their craftwork.
Catch it on HBO, but be sure you see it in high-definition. I’m telling you, this movie is stunning to look at.
MPAA Rating PG
Release date 5/15/08
Time in minutes 140
Director Andrew Adamson
Studio Walt Disney Productions
