Saturday, January 31, 2009

Movie Review: The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian


"The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian" was a movie that I have been waiting to watch for a long time. I loved "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" and was very excited for the 2nd installment. Overall, "Prince Caspian" was a good film, although, I didn't feel it was as good as its predecessor. It's a rock solid 4 star movie...of course, initially I thought "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" was a 4 star movie too, but have since changed it to 5 stars with subsequent viewings.

I've read all 7 books in the Narnia series, and I enjoyed them. They were definitely geared for children. The movies seem to be more geared for adults. "Prince Caspian" is not a kids movie. I may consider letting my 8 year old watch it, but definitely not my 5 year old. I'm probably going to say 10 years or older for "Prince Caspian". It's definitely more intense "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe".

What I'm enjoying about the movies is they examine areas that are skipped by the books. For example, in the books, the battles last a few pages. In "Prince Caspian" the final battle raged for 15-20 minutes. Additionally, the movie went more in depth with the natural conflict that developed between High King Peter, and Prince Caspian.

This film did take some liberties from the book that I didn't like. They chose to incorporate Aslan in a slightly different way than the book, not bad, but I liked how the book did it better. Additionally, they made Peter more whiny than he was in the book, which was annoying. Still, "Prince Caspian" was a good film, and definitely worth 2 and a half hours of my life.

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