Narnia is inappropriate for all ages.
Of the 144 minutes that the new fantasy-adventure film
The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian
runs, there isn't a single clever one to be found. There ***image2***are, perhaps, three or four that sufficiently stimulate the eyes. This leaves at least 140 more to be bored by, to laugh at, to be further bored by and, finally, to plan an escape from.
This begs the question: Is there anything in this PG-romp for the little ones? There is. There are cute little talking animals. There are also stabbings, prolonged sequences of war violence and a massacring of the aforementioned cute little talking animals.
The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian
is the second installment of what will come to be seven movies based on
The Chronicles of Narnia
series by CS Lewis. This one finds the four Pevensie siblings-Lucy (Georgie Henley), Edmund (Skandar Keynes), Peter (William Moseley) and Susan (Anna Popplewell)-drawn from their WWII-era lives in Britain back to the enchanted land of Narnia and into outfits that were clearly stolen from a Renaissance fair. Little more than a year has passed on Earth but more than a millennium has transpired in Narnia.
That everyone they fought beside in the first film is now dead-including, unfortunately, that splendid little faun-doesn't bother the entitled (literally, as they still demand to be recognized as kings and queens) quartet in the least. They have new adventures to attend to.
The crux of these adventures is, primarily, to battle the dastardly, pointy-bearded usurper, Miraz (Sergio Castellitto) and to reinstall the rightful ***image1***heir-head to the throne, Prince Caspian (Ben Barnes), a pretty young thing whose specialty is consternated facial expressions and who has luscious, thick hair and has just as thick of an accent.
This is a goal that has little hope of failing since the Pevensies have coy little tease and lame maxim regurgitater, Aslan (voiced by Liam Neeson, inspired by Jesus) on their side. Nevertheless, they enlist the aid of several conspicuously unendowed centaurs and an oversized, sword-fighting mouse by the name of Reepicheep (voiced by genius stand-up comedian and aspiring bad Hollywood actor, Eddie Izzard). A side-adventure sees the Pevensies
battling the white witch (Tilda Swinton), trapped in a block of ice like a white-lady version of David Blaine.
The action and effects are standard but derivative, with catapults and anthropomorphized trees pilfered directly from
The Lord of the Rings
. Is it too much to ask for a little use of the imagination in a film that purports to be fantasy? And is it too much to hope that the barest of Enlightenment principals would, at some point, seep into our films for the
formative?
