Friday, May 16, 2008
Movie review: The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian
The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian
One year after the incredible events of "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe," the Kings and Queens of Narnia find themselves back in that faraway wondrous realm, only to discover that more than 1,300 years have passed in Narnian time. During their absence, the Golden Age of Narnia has become extinct; Narnia has been conquered by the Telmarines and is now under the control of the evil King Miraz, who rules the land without mercy. The four children will soon meet an intriguing new character: Narnia's rightful heir to the throne, the young Prince Caspian, who has been forced into hiding as his uncle Miraz plots to kill him in order to place his own newborn son on the throne. With the help of the kindly dwarf, a courageous talking mouse named Reepicheep, a badger named Trufflehunter and a Black Dwarf, Nikabrik, the Narnians, led by the mighty knights Peter and Caspian, embark on a remarkable journey to find Aslan, rescue Narnia from Miraz's tyrannical hold and restore magic and glory to the land.
Source: Cinema Source
Let's see if I've got this straight:
The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian is (and this part is easy) the second Disney film based upon the seven-volume C.S. Lewis Narnia series, The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe being the first (though not the first of the books - it's actually the second in the story arc, after The Magician's Nephew). Prince Caspian derives from the second Narnia book to have been actually published, but is in fact the fourth book in terms of Narnian years, following on the heels (or hooves) of the aforementioned Nephew, Wardrobe and an intervening tale called The Horse and His Boy which does not feature the characters of Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy ("the Pevensie siblings").
Chronology is clouded further by the fact that - judging by the expository dialogue - our protagonists ("the Pevensie siblings") are younger now than they ended up being in Wardrobe.
In the words of my most revered fictional protagonists: "Aargh!"
My suggestion: do what I did, and enter the theater without trying to figure out exactly who's who or when's when. Things will go down a lot easier for you.
Besides, all these reality trappings don't really matter (unless you're a Narnia aficionado, in which case feel free to get all up in my face in the comments section at the end of this review). What matters is that the wise-cracking dwarves and cutesy animals and mythical creatures populating this exotic magical landscape (i.e., New Zealand) all speak English. And slay evil Italians (known in the film as Telmarines) with their proportionately-sized swords. Even the mice.
Oh, and don't worry about all the slaying (of which there is a great deal): it's PG-rated manslaughter (after all, there can be no manslaughter without laughter), and thus when evil Italians (Telmarinians) are run through with broadswords or pincushioned by Susan Pevensie's brightly-plumed arrows, no blood results: they simply fall by the wayside and are of no further concern.
Our story begins with an inauspicious birth: a child is delivered to evil and duplicitous Telmarine councilman Miraz (Sergio Castellitto) and his wife, precipitating an assassination attempt against Miraz's nephew and rightful heir to the throne, Prince Caspian X (Ben Barnes, posturing mightily while essaying an Italianate accent). With the assistance of learned Professor/Doctor Cornelius (Vincent Grass), Caspian evades a deadly fusillade of crossbow bolts fired off by Miraz's minions into his bedchamber and escapes into the forest, setting up a chase scene over which the opening credits can conveniently roll.
Cut to 1940's Blitz-era London, where Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy ("the Pevensie siblings") are preparing to board an underground rail car to go... somewhere. Peter, the alpha male of the group, is engaging in fisticuffs as a mundane prelude to the epic battles to come. Boding ill for said battles, he appears to be having the snot kicked out of him. If only he had a sword handy.
As a result of a magical device employed by Prince Caspian, a variety of Stargate opens up in the wall of the Tube and (you know who) are transported magically, as it were, to what appears to be a New Zealand beach but ends up in fact being the ruins of a Narnian outpost where Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy at some point in the space-time continuum have previously reposited their regal accouterments, including capes and Maid Marian dresses and gleaming silver swords - you know, the sorts of things you might buy on a whim at Scarborough Renaissance Festival and then place in your closet, never to be handled again.
Caspian, meanwhile, has been taken in by a dwarf named Nikabrik (Warwick Davis) and his companion, a talking weasel named Trufflehunter (Ken Stott). He (Caspian) is recovering from a head banging received as a result of riding his horse headlong into a low-hanging treel limb - not a good indicator of one's ability to rule a civilization, but whatever. He soon has enough wits about him to convince a gathering of cynical, hunted almost-to-extinction Narnian critters (including fawns, centaur, minotaurs, squirrels and probably invisible chatty amoebas) that he is on their side.
From an initial tendency towards stringing up his Italianate Telmarine ass from the nearest mighty oak, the Narnians almost instantaneously convert to pledging allegiance to Caspian's metaphorical flag, swearing to fight to their various deaths in his service. Quite the two-line pep talk. (The nerve of this guy. Who does he think he is, anyway?)
A variety of additional high-dollar good-looking special-effects-laden things happen leading up to the final credits 144 minutes later. Here's a topical sampling:
* Ferocious (non-talking) bears slain (bloodlessly) by accomplished dwarf archers
* Dreams of the God-bear Aslan, featuring groves of ambulatory trees with well-developed senses of symmetry
* Stirring anthems (thanks, Harry Gregson-Williams!) played against heroic against-the-odds battle sequences
* Assassin mice cracking wise just prior to piercing the throats of stupefied Telmarine soldiers (off-camera) with their wee steely blades
* A brief cameo appearance by Tilda Swinton reprising her role as the White Witch, who almost seduces a couple of the lead characters into giving her a drop of their blood, which presumably would reanimate her dormant frosty corpus.
* Several battles are fought; characters are slain (mostly evil Italianate Telmarines; all bloodlessly), though the only ones we're closely acquainted with who meet their doom are conveniently reanimated by young Lucy using her vial of magical reanimation potion.
* In a tour de force of CG animation brilliance, a Neptune-like water spirit rises all hot-and-bothered from the waters of a Narnian/New Zealand river and smites some fleeing Telmarines, putting the fear of CG animation into them. Not to mention several thousand gallons of water.
Since this is a big budget picture, not only their evil leader but EACH AND EVERY ONE of the Telmarine soldiers gets to wear one of those wicked metal Gladiator masks, which might very well strike fear into the pusillanimous hearts of normal adversaries but do little to daunt their naturally fierce-looking Narnian opponents. Take this guy, for instance: no fierce-looking mask required. And then there's those keen self-loading ballistas brought up to lay siege to the tomb where the Narnian crew are forted up: these cleverly designed engines hurl stone balls the size of dino eggs across vast distances as quickly as their rotating arms can - um - rotate.
Funning aside, this whole overblown production looks (and sounds) plenty good on a big screen. And given that this is director Andrew Adamson's second time out of the gate with the Narnia material (as it is for the Pevensie siblings), one might imagine that familiarity would breed a degree of polish. Perhaps it does. But the standout performance in this film is turned in by a little guy: Peter Dinklage (Death at a Funeral) as the gruff-voiced, truculent Trumpkin, who takes a reluctant shine to young Lucy and becomes her fiercest (and perhaps ablest) ally.
One special effects caveat: romping, galloping centaurs are really, really hard to pull off, and while Cornell John does his part to make Glenstorm a believable character from the waist up, the effects crew (in common with all others who've ever attempted it) just can't quite make the whole thing believable once the horse body and the man trunk go into motion.
But who cares, really? Between the comical murderous mice, the wise and fluffy God-lion Aslan (voiced by Liam Neeson) and the clean-cut WASP youngsters with the power to save the world in their fearless sword-wielding hands, this movie should succeed with its target crowd - that is, kids. Since parents have to take them to see it, the box office for this childish epic oughta be pretty decent.
NOT A REFERENCE TO IRAQ: "This isn't a fortress - it's a tomb." - Peter Pevensie, re. the Narnians' sanctuary before the final battle
NOT A REFERENCE TO NAZIS: "No one hates better than us." - Hag (Klára Issová), servant of the White Witch
NOT A REFERENCE TO CONGRESS: "One must choose his words as carefully as he chooses his friends." - Telmarine councilman
