Product: The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (Two Disc Edition + BD-Live) [Blu-ray] (2008)
Rating: 4.0
The Planet Mars
Prince Caspian is a better movie than the critics might lead you to believe. If you are familiar with Michael Ward's Planet Narnia, you will know that each of the Narnia books is written under the influence of one of the Medieval Planets. Prince Caspian celebrates Mars: god of war, but also god of woodlands. The first half of the movie is stronger than the second. It explores (as Lewis did not) the bewilderment of the Pevensie children, grown to adulthood and crowned kings and queens, plunged back into the more prosaic and constricted world of English childhood. The plot against Prince Caspian sizzles with dark intrigue. The second half of the movie is weaker, not because the second half of the book is weaker, but because the film makers made it look too much like Tolkien's Return of the King. This from the mouths of the middle schoolers I teach. Narnia is friend to Middle Earth, but it is a different world.