Prince Caspian

Libby and I hadn't planned on watching any movies this weekend, but we both came down with colds. So, instead of following through with our previous plans of mucking about in 100+ degree temperatures in the desert, we sweated through the high nineties at our apartment. To break the monotony, we put some DVDs in the old laptop - Batman Begins (to prepare for the sequel I'm most looking forward to this summer), and the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe. Of course, after having finished the first Narnia movie, we took advantage of the opportunity to catch an air-conditioned matinee of the new sequel.

To be honest, I wasn't really looking forward to the new Prince Caspian movie because 1) the first Narnia movie was a little underwhelming, and 2) the trailers were boring. Still, if one's grown up on Narnia, one can't help but indulge his curiosity.

Fortunately, the new movie is good. It's better in many ways than the first one - especially in production value. It is very pretty. The costume design and digital effects are excellent. We saw it on a digital projector at the local Regal, and it shined in polished perfection on the screen.

The acting is also a little bit better. Trumpkin was especially well acted, I thought, and Libby liked Edmund a lot. Lucy and Edmund have grown a lot since the last movie! Eddie Izzard wasn't great as Reepicheep, but that's not too surprising if you've seen the Five Children and It (don't).

The plot's very different than the novel, but I can live with that. I feel like these adaptations suffer a little bit of Lord of the Rings envy - I don't mean just in adding a few thrilling and out of nowhere scenes, and this movie seems to revel in it. Huorns in Narnia? Where are the Ents? And, there are parts I'd like to have seen that were left out (the Bacchanalia, for example), but, again, I can still enjoy it, and I did.

Thematically, it was interesting. The major theme was faithlessness, in both Narnia and the children, towards Aslan. That's a big question for a big budget movie to express, and it predictably doesn't address it very closely. The children learn not to rely too much on themselves, and Narnia learns that it can't forget about its past. Very nice.

Anyway, if you're at all a fan of the books, you should see this movie. You should like it. Plus, if you don't see it, they might not make the next one. And who else wants to see Eustace become a dragon? And to see Reepicheep sail over the end of the world in his coracle on a wave of light?