It was on a sudden decision that I went with a group of friends to a 9:10 showing of this film that, at the time of this review, was yesterday. I had quite enjoyed the first Narnia, but upon seeing this one, I felt kind of blah. Most of my friends felt the same way. Don't get me wrong, the film is well put together. The visuals are impeccable, the production design is well done, the costumes look great, and the actors do fine. Unfortunately, the material seems to be lacking.
One year has passed in our time, but 1300 years have passed in Narnia. Since the four Penvensie children left, Narnia has been overcome by the evil Telemarines, who have banished all Narnians. Now, the evil king Miraz hopes to permanently establish the Telemarine stronghold, but his throne is threatened by his nephew Prince Caspian. Miraz orders the boy to be murdered, but Caspian escapes, and inadvertently calls for help. This is where the Penvensie children come in, as they are whisked away from London back to Narnia, to restore balance in a now grittier land.
You would think that with a title like "Prince Caspian," the filmmakers would work to make our hero well rounded. Unfortunantely, they really don't. The whole backstory involving the raising of Prince Caspian from the novel has been cut, making our hero less 3-dimensional than we would want him to be. The filmmakers have also seemed to believe that since we got to know the children in the first movie, we don't need much characterization involving them again. King Miraz looks like the bad guy version of King Leonidas from "300," and his motives seem muddled. Not until the end of the film did I really feel his evil presence, and by then, it was hard for me to start fearing him. The result is that we, as the audience, don't feel very involved with the story. There are characters, some good, some bad, but you are not entirely sure what their motives are.
As far as the acting goes, I was fine. There were no standouts with this movie like there was with Tilda Swinton in the last one. Part of this I blame on lacking material.
Since we are not involved with the characters or with the story, all we can do is watch the nice stuff that has been put on screen. Simply put, this is a well put together film that doesn't have a whole lot of material backing it up.
Hopefully the new director for "The Dawn Treader" will do better.
