Thursday, November 13, 2008

Movie Review - Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian


Movie Title
Chronicles of Narnia : Prince Caspian
Year
2008
Genre
Fantasy
Story
This is obviously the sequel to The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. The Pevensie siblings – Peter (William Moseley), Susan (Anna Popplewell), Edward (Skandar Keynes) & Lucy (Georgie Henley) make a comeback. Lucy has visibly grown a little taller and cuter. Of course the movie wouldn’t be called Prince Caspian if they were not joined by new hottie His Royal Highness, Prince Caspian (Ben Barnes).
The Pevensie siblings are once again called upon to save Narnia. Altho’ when they were back in London, not time had passed since their last adventure but in Narnia, roughly 1,300 years had passed and Narnians no longer rule the land. Aslan, for some reason, has gone away and had not been seen for many years. Instead, it is now ruled by humans called Telmarines. Led by an evil Lord Miraz, who had schemed to take the Telmarine throne by any means. Thus, when Prince Caspian, the rightful heir to the throne learnt of a plot to his murder when Lord Miraz’s Queen finally gave him a son, Prince Caspian fled to the deep forests of Narnia. With Miraz’s soldiers in hot pursuit, it was there he used the Queen Susan's magic horn to summon the “Kings and Queens of old” (ie: the Pevensie siblings).

The movie is basically a battle between good and evil. The big battle between the Narnians and Telmarines happens at Beruna, the Narnians’ final stronghold. Fans of this genre will draw many parallels to the battles at Helm’s Deep & Minas Tirith in the Lord Of the Rings trilogy. However, the Narnians (fantasy creatures) make it visually different from those battles as the Orcs in LOTR are visibly humanoid while the Centaurs, Minotaurs, Griffins, battle-honed cheetahs and panthers make the Beruna battle visually more exciting.

SPOILERS AHEAD - The end was a little predictable. After all, it is a Disney Film. As in the first movie, Aslan comes to the rescue in the end and everything is restored until the next installment.

Acting
Well, the acting was adequate but the actors playing the Pevensie kids are getting better. Do not expect any award winning performances here. There are parts where I felt that both Caspian and Peter were a little stiff.

The creatures are very typical Disney/Pixar type animation. Highly detailed, very fluid but too much so to be real buts it’s definitely very good.

Overall
It’s a fun romp in the fantasy realm of Narnia. I personally prefer this franchise to the Harry Potter franchise (I know this is going to elicit a few rather passionate responses). I enjoyed seeing more depth to the characters and eventho the movie length was longer than 90 minutes, I did not feel that it was a long movie. I wanted to see more of the creatures and wished they had more screen time.

Rating: 6.5/10

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