Directed by: Andrew Adamson
Starring: Ben Barnes, Sergio Castellitto, Peter Dinklage, William Moseley, Tilda Swinton
Rating: PG

Ben Barnes as Prince Caspian. (Courtesy photo)

When The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe was released in winter 2005, audiences came in shocking numbers. The clunky C.S. Lewis adaptation was easy to like, thanks to a batch of appealing first-time actors and an almost naïve earnestness to the storytelling. Director Andrew Adamson did not quite know what to do with humans after years of piloting Shrek, and the entrancing Tilda Swinton did not make the most of her juicy role of the White Witch. But everyone got a B for effort, and Lewis’s old-fashioned storytelling carried the day. Prince Caspian arrives two-and-a-half years later, with a bigger price tag (supposedly north of $200 million) and higher expectations.

What is lacking is passion. In what will surely be a recurring question this summer, was anyone really hungering for this sequel? Prince Caspian is a superior film to The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, but it isn’t as satisfying. It’s a fairly well-executed epic fairy tale, and its darker elements are laudable. But while the storytelling plays young, the violence is anything but. The four Pevensie children are a little older and wiser, yes, but are they really old enough to be spearheading carefully orchestrated battle maneuvers? Are we really supposed to cheer when the swashbuckling mouse swordsman Reepicheep slits another poor human’s throat? Prince Caspian is rated PG, which I find inappropriate. We’ve seen this level of violence in PG movies before, but not so cold-blooded, and not perpetrated by kids.
Lucy, Edmund, Susan, and Peter are swept back into Narnia 1,000 years after their last adventure. They discover that the Narnian creatures were nearly exterminated by a race of men known as the Telmarines. But the fugitive heir to the Telmarine throne, Prince Caspian, may be the one to bring peace between humans and Narnians. Caspian (Ben Barnes) asks the Pevensies to help him overthrow his evil uncle, King Miraz (Sergio Castellitto). They are joined by some valued allies, including grouchy dwarf Trumpkin (Peter Dinklage), noble badger Trufflehunter (voiced by Ken Stott) and loyal mouse Reepicheep (voiced by Eddie Izzard). There’s also a lot of checking in with various underlings of Miraz, none of which is interesting enough to merit the screen time.

There are strong threads in Prince Caspian. The competitive spirit between Peter (William Moseley) and Caspian gives both more to do than simply look heroic. As in the first film, Lucy is the most inspiring character. Religious considerations aside, her connection to the lion Aslan is moving stuff. And there are good performances. All of the kids have improved, if only marginally. Veteran Italian actor Sergio Castellitto takes awhile to properly fill the screen with menace, but he is good as Miraz. Ben Barnes is fine as Caspian, and no doubt would have fared better if not saddled with a silly, Spanish-like ‘Telmarine’ accent. Dinklage (The Station Agent, Underdog) is fun—and in his element—playing the slow-to-melt Trumpkin. His scenes with Georgie Hanley’s Lucy are dangerously syrupy, but work. In fact, the most unapologetically melodramatic moments do work, which is a testament to Adamson. He may be wiser, but he is no less earnest.

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe was a complete story, making it harder than most franchises to build onto. The story told in Prince Caspian is solid enough, but the ultimate goal—to get things back to neutral—doesn’t supply much growth. There’s no Lord of the Rings-style evolution here, though you can tell Adamson has been watching those movies a lot. Unfortunately, while he has become much more sturdy a filmmaker, he does not seem to have much personal vision. Prince Caspian borrows its look and feel heavily from The Lord of the Rings, including the same type of pacing and camerawork during action sequences.
The less-than-stellar box office returns in Prince Caspian’s opening weekend probably won’t stop Disney from moving ahead with the third installment of the Chronicles of Narnia—Voyage of the Dawn Treader. But it must have them nervous. The next movie may actually have an advantage over Prince Caspian, as expectations will be properly adjusted. Still, at this moment the Chronicles of Narnia is not looking like the massive franchise Disney was hoping for. Prince Caspian is engaging from beginning to end, but this somber battle movie behaves like it has something meaningful to say beyond its predecessor, and it simply doesn’t.

Alex Manugian lives in Sherman Oaks, California. He grew up in Groton and has reviewed movies for Harvard residents for many years.