Product: The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (Two Disc Edition + BD-Live) [Blu-ray] (2008)
Rating: 3.0
Disjointed and confused, the film still evoked the magic of Narnia
3 1/2 stars. Not quite good enough for a bump up to 4 though.During the first twenty minutes of the film, I was wondering what could have inspired Mike LaSalle, from the San Francisco Chronicle, to give this such a poor review. The magic of Narnia was alive in abundance, even if Caspian's home resembled Hogwart's, even though I found the decision not to develop Caspian as a character early in the film puzzling (that decision cost them in the end), and couldn't understand why Spaniards were cast as the Telmarines. Have Spaniards become evil? I wasn't aware.While I do not share Mr. LaSale's decidedly poor opinion, the film fell rapidly from an initial five-star flush to its current rating. The film was overlong by at least thirty minutes, and although the film wasted time having characters standing about, talking, thinking, looking--in essence, doing nothing--it didn't develop some of the most important relationships. Lucy called Trumpkin her "DLF" - dear little friend. However, I'm hard pressed to find a point prior to her labeling him as such where something happened between the two of them to justify that.Caspian (Ben Barnes) was perhaps the greatest disappointment. Not that Barnes did anything wrong, he just wasn't given much to work with. He was as cardboard as they come, and he shouldn't have been. The producers chose to stay reasonably true to the book, so why they hung Caspian out to dry is beyond me.Some of the other problems I had with the film I also have with the book, so they don't factor into my rating. That said, I do have to say *something*. Aslan allowed the Telmarines to invade Narnia, nearly wipe out all Narnians, and he didn't do a thing about it until the Pevensies came back 1300 years later? Really? Can't say I find him very inspiring. He didn't have a good explanation for his indifference in either the book or the movie, because there is no good explanation for it, aside from this being an unabashedly Christian story, written by one of last century's greatest Christian apologists, and Christianity (no offense to Christians or to Christianity) has a relationship with its God that allows for that God (and all his/her incarnations) to ignore all sorts of horrors. But Narnia is fiction, and when crafting a fictional tale one must have a better reason than, "Well, it's all a part of a grand plan that we just don't understand. Sure, twenty million people were killed, but I'm sure we deserved it, and if we didn't, it was at least good for us."Still, it was entertaining at times, and that earned it three stars. The film seems to have a bit of an identity complex, as if it can't decide whether it wants to be entirely aimed at children, or to be a film aimed at everyone. Having Ben Barnes cast as Caspian, who, at 26, is at least 10 year older than Caspian was in the book, is telling.I'm still interested to see if they can learn from their mistakes, capitalize on what they've earned with Reepicheep's character, and make the next movie, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, a great one. It's a compelling story, so I have high hopes for it.