THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: PRINCE CASPIAN – andrew adamson – 3.9 / 10

This lame second installment of a bound-to-be-lame trilogy, isn’t much worse or better than the lame first film. Without having read the book, it’s hard to ascribe blame for the abovementioned lameness. But based on my reading of the book of The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe and then seeing the film, I’m going to assume that they followed the book pretty closely and just elongated the action sequences and drama (since both are almost entirely lacking in the book). If that’s the case, then a lot of the blame for the awful thematic elements can be placed at C.S. Lewis’s feet.

And when you get right down to it, C.S. Lewis is just not a very good writer. He earns a little leeway because his books weren’t originally intended for publication but that doesn’t change the fact that they are so poorly plotted that I find it almost impossible to imagine someone reading one of his books now and thinking it would be a good idea to share them with the world.

There’s just an awful lot of stupid things happening in these stories. The most obvious of which is probably the fact that Peter happens to have a flashlight with him when the kids go back to Narnia. If he didn’t, many different things that happen in the film would be impossible. And that would be fine if it were some common item that a person would reasonably have in their school bag. But a flashlight? Why would he have a flashlight?

That sort of ill-considered plotting is present throughout the film. From the fact that Prince Caspian could have just killed the impostor king and declared himself the new ruler (thus negating the last third of the film and preventing thousands of deaths) to the stupid pop song that closes the film, Prince Caspian is rife with half-formed ideas and lame plotting that would certainly have been ironed out had the film not been based on a revered book (which, it should be recalled was originally only intended for the consumption of one specific child).

The most bothersome plot development is when Aslan (the Jesus figure of Narnia) chooses not to reveal himself until the very end because the people no longer believed in him. What kind of petty absentee god punishes his people by allowing thousands of them to die because just because they don’t believe in him? The Christian god, of course. Is that really the message that a big summer movie aimed at children (witness the complete lack of blood in the hundreds of on screen deaths) wants to be sending?