Product: The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (Two Disc Edition + BD-Live) [Blu-ray] (2008)
Rating: 3.0
Wait A Minute!!! I've Seen this before... ...Haven't I?
FORM LETTER TO READERSLet me clear the air very quickly so you don't waste your time deciding if you agree with me or not; I NEVER compare films to the video games, books, short stories or TV shows they are sourced from . I believe that as a different medium, expectations for a film should be a clean slate. I refuse to hate or love a film because it was unfaithful or faithful to its source material. End of speech.My Review; (FULL OF SPOILERS)-I THOUGHT THE ENTS MADE THEIR LAST MARCH?In this, the 4th chapter in the LOTR "Trilogy" the Ents go on the march again. I thought they had declared "The last march of the Ents" 3 films ago? Oh well, the river gods wash away the bad guys again just like in the first film but this time the victims are humans and not the ring Wraiths. I found this confusing since I thought the humans were the good guys in the LOTR series? Hold on, someone is reading over my shoulder... ...what? Oh? This isn't LOTR? IS MY FACE RED! Sorry. Never mind.-LOST ON THE WAY TO HOGWARTSThis 6th entry in the "Harry Potter" series was a bit disappointing. I love the Hogwarts Express but in this film the train just zooms right past Harry and friends and opens a doorway to another place that looks nothing like Hogwarts. They certainly could not fool me into believing these were the same actors as in the first 5 Harry Potter films just by dressing them like Hogwarts students... ...what? Not Harry Potter? DOH!!!-WHY REMAKES SUCKI'm not sure why the powers-that-be decided to make a remake of "The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe" since it was just done a few years ago. Not only do they make a half hearted re-do, but they twist around the story so it's only mildly different; very annoying. Instead of the bad guys being scary beasts lead by a snow queen, these are now the good guys. Instead of humans being the good guys, they are the bad guys... ...and the good guys, sort of... ... never mind! Any way, Aslan the Lion is exactly the same in this version. He even saves the day like in the first film (so easily that I question the need for any other heroes), even though he mutters a couple times about how things can't happen the same way twice (and yet they do). The kids are all the same actors and I liked them in both films, especially Lucy. And then there's Prince Caspian; he's not even in the original version... ...what? This is a different story? This is called "Prince Caspian"? MY BAD!! Man, I am so confused!-I WAS WATCHING A FILM AND A VIDIOGAME BROKE OUT...I enjoyed the first Narnia film on a whimsical sort of level. It was fairly harmless action with fun characters and fair to excellent Visual FX. This film is a bit more ambitious and yet not always up to the task. With the influx of massed hoarse and humans formations, CG was used to prevent probable animal injury. The unfortunate result is a bunch of videogame polygon figures running about. Some of these computer models hardly looked rendered; just awful. Those Ents and the River Spirits were also below the state-of-the-art. When you consider that LOTR was made 6 and 7 years ago and looks much better, that's pretty shameful. Not all of the film looked bad, but enough did to spoil it for me.-WHO'S THE AUDIENCE?Like the first version... ...er, film, there is much violence. Like the first film, there is little blood. Like the first film, my 9 year old daughter was afraid of what the violence implied. Unlike the first film, my 6 year old was bored (as were I and my wife). The themes were dark and complex, the characters light, the casualty rate high. The story pacing was slow, the plot full of overly convenient loopholes and the dialogue at times incoherent. Imagine explaining the rights of royal succession to a 6 year old during a movie. Imagine a 9 year old asking why Caspian's uncle had to wait to have a son before he could murder Caspian for the throne. I did not have a reasonable answer (Smart girl). This film satisfied no one while trying to satisfy everyone (at least in my family).-IN THE END......I felt gypped. Source material not withstanding, this was really a retelling of the first film with a few little twists. The visual FX were actually worse than the original and certainly much worse than the older films it so vividly reminded me of. The final scene is played out with reverence and purpose; implying that some sort of lesson should be gleaned from the preceding events. I'm not going to get into the obvious religious implications of the message but it was overly simplistic. Finally, two characters are declared to have grown beyond Narnia when in actuality they grew little and showed much room for improvement. Despite the attempt at spectacle, the theaters big screen exposed the bad visuals and was wasted on a story that seemed only half thought out, relying on one characters overwhelming magic to save the day. My family and I were fairly disappointed in this fairly mediocre film. If you are a big fan of the first film and can ignore poor visual FX, you might like this. Otherwise wait for the rental.