Movie review: ‘Prince Caspian’ pretty good despite Prince Caspian
Posted by Dennis Sellers 
May 16, 2008 at 6:19am
By Ramona Bissudo
Putting aside the discussion about whether the Narnia tales are a retelling of the Christ story (read into them what you will), The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian is a worthy follow-up to 2005’s The Chronicles of Narnia, though neither matches the epic Lord of the Rings films.
Based on the second installment in C.S. Lewis’ seven-part fantasy series, Prince Caspian finds the four Pevensie siblings (Georgie Henley, Skandar Keynes, William Moseley and Anna Popplewell) pulled back into the land of Narnia (though there’s no wardrobe involved this time), where a thousand years have passed since they left—though only a year has passed by for them. The children are again enlisted to join the creatures of Narnia in combating an evil villain who prevents the rightful prince—that would be Prince Caspian (Ben Barnes)—from ruling the land. The evil King Miraz (Sergio Castellitto) wants to dispose Caspian and put his own son on the throne.
The new film is darker and a bit more violent (or action packed, if you will) than the first film. But as directed by Andrew Adamson (who helmed the first film and the first two Shrek) movies, it’s still enchanting and, at times, humorous. For example, though he bears more than a little resemblance to Puss in Boots from the Shrek films, a valiant mouse named Reepicheap (voiced by Eddie Izzard) is pretty entertaining without wearing out his welcome.
The special effects in Prince Caspian are impressive, as are the battle scenes. Unfortunately, the battle scenes concentrate mostly on the Pevensies and friends fighting Miraz’s Telmarine soldiers. More Narnian creatures of assorted shapes and sizes, as featured in the first film, would have been welcome. Still, one new character almost makes up for this: Trumpkin the Dwarf. As played with curmudgeonly gusto by Peter Dinklage, he’s the most riveting character in Prince Caspian—even after Aslan the Lion (Liam Neeson) and the White Witch (Tilda Swinton) make a belated appearance.
Ironically, the least interesting character in Prince Caspian is Prince Caspian. Though Barnes is handsome enough in the role, the prince is a standard issue hero, who’s not nearly as interesting as the Pevensie kids.
In some ways, the film is the same way. Prince Caspian is a good time at the movies, but you won’t care to come back and visit it time and again as you (or at least I) do the lands of The Lord of the Rings.
The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian is rated PG for epic battle action and violence Running time: 147 minutes. Macsimum rating: 6.5 out of 10. You can check out the film’s trailer on the QuickTime movie trailer site.
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Dennis Sellers
Dennis has been a newspaper editor/reporter (seven years) and teacher (seven years). He has over 4,000 magazine, newspaper and online articles to his credit. He has also covered the Mac and tech industries for over a decade for such online publications as MacCentral, MacMinute and now MacsimumNews.
