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Magic missing from 'Prince Caspian'
Movie Review: The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian
By John Wirt
jwirt@theadvocate.com
Advocate movie critic
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The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, released in December 2005, was a respectable start at adapting The Chronicles of Narnia, C.S. Lewis’ classic seven-book series for children, for the big screen. Opening this week, the second film, Prince Caspian, is a disappointing follow-up.
The first Narnia film is rich in fairytale imagery and storytelling, Christian allegory and appealing animal characters. Also essential to The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe’s success are the sibling dynamics exhibited by the film’s four principal human characters. Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy Pevensie squabble and stumble just as real, imperfect children do.
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe has a terrific villainess, too, Tilda Swinton’s grandly creepy ice queen, the White Witch. And Georgie Henley’s Lucy, the youngest of the Pevensie children and the spark that ignites the entire adventure, makes a brave and lovable heroine.
But so much of what made the first Narnia movie work is, literally, missing in action in the second film. Prince Caspian, with its endless fight and battle scenes, must be primarily intended for 10-year-old boys. What’s more, the film feels uninspired. It’s more wearying exercise than great adventure.
The four young Brits who played the Pevensie children in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe return for an encore. As the older siblings Peter and Susan, William Moseley and Popplewell are especially wooden. And Skandar Kaynes, who was so important in the previous film as younger brother Edmund, barely registers in Caspian. Even Henley’s Lucy, still precocious and in a touching scene or two, is a supporting player amidst the glut of battles.
Despite Prince Caspian’s missing magic, at least one new character, the swordsman mouse, Reepicheep (voice performance by Eddie Izzard), is a fun scene stealer. The film introduces new villains, too, but they produce only moderate heat.
Prince Caspian begins a year after the Pevensie children return to England from Narnia. Meanwhile, in Narnia, 1,300 years have passed. The benevolent reign of Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy is nearly forgotten legend and Aslan, the Christ-like lion who helped the children during their first visit to Narnia, has not appeared there for a thousand years.
But now the Narnians — a population of talking animals and creatures who are strictly mythological in the human world — need their historic benefactors, not to mention Aslan. Lord Miraz, the ruthless leader of the Telmarines, a nearby community of humans, intends to drive them into extinction.
Italian actor Sergio Castellitto co-stars as Miraz. Pierfrancesco Favino, another Italian, plays the leader of the Telmarine army. Miraz has none of the cool menace that made the White Witch such an intriguing enemy. And his and the other Telmarines’ Italian accents are disconcerting. Who knew that Narnia bordered Italy?
There are other problems. Despite the vast forces of artists, designers and computer-animators who worked behind its scenes, Prince Caspian looks slapped together. No amount of action and Narnians on screen — fauns, centaurs, minotaurs, big cats, dwarves — can resurrect this spiritless sequel.
