Reviews
Prince Caspian
Directed by Andrew Adamson
Certificate PG, 145 mins
You can often guess what a movie is going to be like ahead of seeing it. Prince Caspian is arguably the weakest Narnia book: the plot essentially takes the four children back to Narnia to help Prince Caspian, the rightful king, and his army of talking animals overthrow the evil usurper Uncle Miraz (and his army) in a big battle. A faithful standalone adaptation of Caspian is imperative if all seven books are to be adapted as individual movie – and yet the very entry that might kill off the franchise altogether. Against expectation, however, the Caspian movie is not only (largely) faithful, it’s also far better than its precursor.
The first film had half an eye on its rival blockbuster franchises Lord Of The Rings and Harry Potter. For Caspian, however, the same director (Adamson, from Shrek) has been able to forget the competition and concentrate on Narnia, now a box office success in its own right.
This is a different Narnia 1300 years on from The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, populated by a whole new set of characters human and fantastical. The human Telmarines have Spanish accents, which while not mentioned by Lewis makes sense. There are centaurs, a giant and Reepicheep the talking, sword-wielding mouse.
Trees wade through solid ground and attack battlefield opponents with rapidly moving roots. More memorable still on the arboreal front is the sequence where Lucy sees a tree dancing in the wind – or, more accurately, petals blown on the wind that form and unform a dancing, cavorting person. It's not exactly the book but it's well within the spirit of the author's vision.
Adaptating Caspian's narrative presents further challenges. The four-chapter flashback narrated by Trumpkin the dwarf is reworked not as flashback but by constructing the film as two parallel stories, one about Caspian's flight from Miraz and his falling in with Trumpkin and friends, the other that of the children's transportation back to Narnia and what happens to them there. Elsewhere, Lucy's seeing Aslan when no‑one else does is visualised by showing her reaction rather than what she sees, a clever and highly effective cinematic equivalent to Lewis’ literary device.
Liberties are taken with Nikabrik's attempt to shift Caspian's loyalty from Aslan to darker Narnian forces (a hag and a wer-wolf), but while they're sure to raise a few eyebrows among purists, I suspect Lewis would have approved. Although Caspian has benefited from a bigger budget than The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, more pertinently this second franchise foray feels less a stab at outdoing LOTR or Potter than a genuine attempt – and a highly successful one at that - to put Narnia on the screen. In short, magnificent.
Jeremy Clarke
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