The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (2008)
Cast: Ben Barnes, William Moseley, Anna Popplewell, Skandar Keynes, Georgina Henley, Eddie Izzard, Liam Neeson
Director: Andrew Adamson
Running Time: 140 mins

One Thousand Three Hundred Narnian years later Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy return to Narnia for the second instalment of the Chronicles of Narnia based on the popular fantasy novels by C.S. Lewis.
This time there were no wardrobes or magic street lamps it was down to serious business in Narnia with a host of new characters and some dramatic returns for some old ones from The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

In Narnia, a Telmarine Prince named Caspian is driven out of his castle due to his evil uncle's plot to steal the throne for himself and his new born heir. The Telmarines, in their bid to gain control of Narnia had killed and banished most of the magical creatures within Narnia and had stifled all knowledge of the creatures from its people.

In his escape Caspian runs into two dwarfs and a talking badger who tell him of an uprising by which the Narnians hope to reclaim their freedom. In a desperate act Caspian sounds Susan's magic horn which is given to him by his trusted tutor Dr. Cornelius. It is then, that the four Pevensie siblings are teleported back to Narnia in order to assist the uprising of the Narnians and free its people once more.

In truth the film was not very much like the first one as this one had a dark, sinister feel to it or at least more than before. The movie stays very close to the story in the book and doesn't have many additives. In fact fans of the book will enjoy hearing some of the clear styles employed by C.S. Lewis in the script. However, the film is a little more serious than the previous one and some parts may be even confusing to kids. Most of the film has to do with little children murdering Telmarine soldiers and that in itself is a little warped and could be considered inappropriate.

The clear biblical themes in the first movie are also prevalent in Prince Caspian however the saviour, no pun intended, in the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, the Lion Aslan (voice of Liam Neeson) doesn't appear until the end of the film but he is nonetheless still a spectacle to watch. In fact most of the creatures and special effects in the movie are near flawless. The battle scenes are also neatly created but the fact that under aged kids were chopping heads and stabbing hearts was a little too much for me to handle.

This was largely attributed to Lewis' experiences in World War I. Getting back to the film, the writers and director didn't have much to work with. The plot was neither complex nor enthralling as it was initially meant for children but they certainly did what they could with the fantastical elements of the film to make up for the script which is also very close to the book. The soundtrack for the film was composed by Harry Gregson who also did the score for the first instalment but this time the music was also far gloomier and darker than the first.

The acting as you can expect was as good as I could have expected it to be but I suppose it isn't the main attraction for the film neither was it completely pain staking to watch. Ben Barnes who played Caspian was however awful and clueless as to who his character was. The addition of Eddie Izzard as the voice of the daring mouse Reepicheep was a breath of fresh air until he started jokingly slitting throats. The White Witch also makes a brief appearance but is soon killed once again this time by Edmund.

However, the movie was a little too long. Spanning over two hours, the writers attempted to fit in a lot of background material into the film while also trying to be too close to the contours of the book. The film almost seemed restricted by it as adaptations mustn't fail to have a life of its own. All this being said I cannot seem to forget the ghastly BBC miniseries of the Narnian books in which the Prince Caspian episodes were embarrassingly terrible. So watching this movie to cleanse myself of past horrors will certainly not go unappreciated.

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