The Case for More Narnia

Seeing the Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian at the Embassy definitely gave the two and a half hour epic movie a fitting setting. But the fact the film on opening week (and cheapskate Tuesday) was much more sparsely populated than Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull indicated to me that this was either a more niche film or one received with less anticipation, despite the glowing reviews in the local paper.

The film looks magnificent. Big, bold and brightly lit, the sets all look sumptuous, the sterile, cold Telmarine court contrasting with the vibrant land of Narnia. The action scenes are well choreographed (and easy to follow, unlike some Star Wars films I can mention), and the non-action scenes are all told fairly briskly, though the sheer length of the film means that there are still some periods of tedium and mild disinterest.

Let me be honest here: the whole Christian allegory thing gets to me, so whenever Aslan appears on screen (which isn’t much in this flick), I tend to get all cynical. My moral issue is the “if God cares, why does he allow evil in the world?” variety, and the film (much like the Bible) avoids trying to actually provide a convincing argument and just leaves Aslan (a physical and directly involved participant in Narnia) to do things in his own mysterious, unfathomable and sometimes hypocritical way.

When Aslan is not on screen, I have a much better time dealing with the characters. Peter and Lucy are once more played by well-spoken over-actors (their “humorous exchanges” met with resounding silence from the audience), while Susan delivers more through eye contact than her meagre lines allow. But the actor playing Edmund is the one who seems truly ill-served by the script and, despite loads of promise in what screen time he has, is criminally underused. Luckily, the actor playing the titular Caspian is well chosen, and he holds his strange accent and styled mop of hair well during the proceedings, and the Telmarines are all played dark and evil and quite possibly as French or Spanish. Of course, all of them are blown out of the water when the ever-freaky but ultra-cool Tilda Swinton makes her brief but welcome appearance as the White Witch.

But this is a kiddie tale, so really it doesn’t have to have outstanding performances or a huge amount of emotional and intellectual depth. There is plenty of wonder, incredible fight scenes, breathtaking visual effects and scenery, and cute furry (and fairly forgettable – no Mr Tumnus this time around) creatures. I had a silent chuckle when the winners of the grand battle wandered through the streets of the enemy to rapturous applause (their imaginary cries in my head went something like, “thanks for slaughtering our husbands and sons! Yay!”), and the ending was similarly pat - but then Aslan was there, so my “critical” glasses were on.

Verdict: The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian is everything the book promises but in wonderfully visual form. Perhaps the film is a bit longer than it needed to be, and the flaws of the source material also marred my appreciation of the film, but an incredible cinematic experience. Six sons of Adam (the director is an Adamson too!) and daughters of Eve out of Ten.