Movie Thoughts: The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (2008)

• Released: 16 May 2008
• Directed by:  Andrew Adamson
• Running time: 2 h 30 min
• Rating 3.5/5

Synopsis

The Pevensie children return to Narnia to help its inhabitants defeat the Telmarine soldiers that took over the realm.

My Thoughts

I used to hate Prince Caspian, but by now I’ve come to accept that it’s decent. I do like it more than my criticisms make it look like, but it definitely has its problems.

First of all, you really feel the running time in this one. The first one was perfectly paced if you ask me, but this one really felt needlessly drawn out and that made it feel quite dull in places.

The child acting was good and the other actors did a good job as well. However, my main gripe with this movie is that it feels like the magic of Narnia is pretty much gone. The first movie had this epic high-fantasy feel to it with magic, witches and all sorts of mystical creatures and talking beasts. Now, in this movie, it turns out that there’s a whole civilization of humans that has colonized Narnia. I thought that it was important that only certain select people such as the Pevensies could enter into Narnia? This whole human conflict definitely makes the fantasy stuff take a back seat, which just overall felt less charming and fun to me. It feels like they tried to make the movie feel way more grown up over here, but honestly it didn’t quite work for me. There’s just less wonder and enjoyment to be had in this world when it becomes so much like our own in medieval times.

I also personally don’t like Reepicheep. I don’t know why but I just don’t find the character to be fun. I liked Trumpkin though, and the brief callback to Jadis from the first movie.