Disclaimer: The Author accepts no responsibility for any Disappointed Expectations or Spoiled Endings that may occur as a result of viewing the information that follows. You have been warned.
I can't say I really liked the first Narnia movie that well, but Prince Caspian was not bad at all. I liked it partly because Ben Barnes, who plays the prince, is sexy in armor and William Moseley actually looks his age this time round. Overall, though, I really do think it was a better movie, at least in terms of entertainment value. It's been too long since I read the books to be able to say whether either of the movies really captured the tone of C.S. Lewis's work, but my general feeling is that neither of them really do. As movies, they may be better off for it.
The absence of Aslan for much of the movie was, for me, a good thing, because digital animals always seem just a bit off to me, especially in these movies and especially the lion, maybe because he's so big. The mice didn't bother me at all, and the badger was only moderately frustrating. On the other hand, the mythological creatures - mainly centaurs and minotaurs in this movie - were fantastic. I'm not sure whether they have better geeks doing the magic stuff or I'm not as attached to a theory of what a "real" faun should look like, but I always feel like there's a distinct difference in the quality of the animation.
Then again, maybe the reason Disney has so much trouble animating a lion is that it was never done in the Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter movies. This alternate explanation seems rather plausible, given the sizable visual debt Prince Caspian owes the creators of those films. The final battle scene in The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe looked much like the battles we saw in the LOTR movies, and Prince Caspian used even more borrowed visual themes. For instance, one element that seemed particularly unoriginal in this film was the appearance of a river god to destroy the evil attackers. I don't remember how, of if, this scene was portrayed in the books, but it didn't seem as though those responsible for the movies made much effort to make its cinematic portrayal stand out from the similar scene in Fellowship of the Ring in which water horses overrun a pack of enemy soldiers. And where the panoramas and nature effects owe much to that trilogy, the blurs and slow motions of the one-on-one fight scenes remind stylistically of the Quidditch matches in the Harry Potter movies.
Perhaps it is inevitable that a movie exploiting the novel-based special-effects-laden fantasy series craze created by the Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter movies leans on its predecessors for more than simply thematic inspiration, and similarity of source material may be partly to blame for many of the other overlaps between LOTR and the Narnia movies. One of the other things Prince Caspian (unfortunately) has in common with its fantasy epic predecessor in an emphasis on action and adventure rather than well-rounded characters and realistic dialog.
Peter and Susan, in particular, are hindered by awkward lines and cues. Neither William Moseley nor Anna Popplewell seem to be as willing to buy into to the movie's drama as Skandar Keynes and Georgie Henley, who play Edmund and Lucy. The older characters are further hindered by the screenwriters' attempts to make them seem "mature," with the result that Edmund and Lucy are much more convincing as characters than the stilted Peter and Susan.
Also tortuously forced is the pseudo-romance of Prince Caspian and Susan, built mostly on unsubtle camera cuts between the two and a single saucy comment on Susan's part. And then of course that awful, awful kiss. To begin with, of course, it is most certainly not in the book, though I don't think extratextuality is necessarily a mortal sin. What really dooms Disney's attempt at "creative interpretation" here is the total lack of chemistry between the two characters. Admittedly, their relationship is supposed to be more about the possibility than anything solid, but I didn't see enough actual interaction between the characters to justify even that.
On the other hand (though this is so completely unorthodox that any true C.S. Lewis fan would condemn me to hell for even thinking it), had either of their characters been female/had Prince Caspian not been a Disney movie based on a book by C.S. Lewis, I would have said there were some sparks flying between Caspian and Peter. I admit that a portion of my attachment to this idea (like my fondness for the movie) is related to the fact that I find both of them rather attractive, but I am convinced that not all of the sexual tension I was seeing was a result of an overactive imagination.
At this point, it might be wise to ask if I would have liked the movie nearly so much had I not been scouring every scene for hints of potential scandal. The answer, I think, after much introspection, is that while certainly it made for endless amusement and cause for more than one comment to coviewers afterward, the movie has merit in and of itself. It's not a great classic epic like Lord of the Rings, nor does it deal with real teenage personalities and issues like Harry Potter, but Prince Caspian is at the very least an entertaining addition to the genre. You could spend your money on many much worse movies this summer.
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