Product: The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (Two Disc Edition + BD-Live) [Blu-ray] (2008)
Rating: 5.0
Another heroic triumph
I had a blast watching Disney's new episode of the beloved Narnia series. As in the first movie, it starts in an England torn by WWII. A mundane subway station magically becomes transport back to Narnia, which the children had left only a year earlier - but a mmillenium past, by that world's calendar. Their arrival signals a heroic myth returned to life.The story thinly veils C. S. Lewis's Christian allegory. Although I haven't read the books in years, I was surprised at how much of the Christ mythos came through. Secularists (like me) need not worry, though. The fantasy unfolds beautifully even if you ignore that aspect. The effect-masters bring Narnia's population of centaurs, fauns, and other beings to life very convincingly, and the battle scenes carry all the excitement, drama, and scope one could wish. Even Susan, the older girl, joins the battle - despite long skirts, light armor, and a ladylike (but deadly) longbow, she does as well in close combat as any of the others. Lucy, the little one, truly turns the battle though. You'll see for yourself. Just wait until her baby-fatted hand draws her tiny weapon against the entire invading army - the whole course the war changes at that moment.There's no way to know, perhaps this does carry the thrill and majesty of Lewis's vision of fiction. Either way, it gets the summer movie season off to a rousing start.-- wiredweird