'Chronicles' headed in wrong direction
By Roger Moore
the orlando sentinel
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 05.15.2008
Those nagging "minor" problems that burdened "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" take center stage in "Prince Caspian," the second of seven "Chronicles of Narnia" to make it to the big screen.
The kid actors are still bland in the extreme. The direction is pedestrian to the point of "Why did they hire the guy who made 'Shrek' to shoot this?" It's darker, literally, with an under-lit opening and one of the two set-piece battles that dominate the film taking place at night.
And the villains are so dull and lacking in menace that you find yourself whispering a little prayer for the return of Tilda Swinton's White Witch.
If you ever wondered what "The Lord of the Rings" would have been like had Disney made it on the cheap, tossing the cast of "Hannah Montana" into Middle-Earth, here it is. "Caspian" is 2 hours and 20 minutes of "whatever."
Not that Disney shoulders the main blame for this muddled letdown. Walden Media has the deal with C.S. Lewis' heir (a producer on the film), and they're the ones who picked this director, insisted on a somewhat literal take on the Lewis story and didn't spend their milk money on actors.
Consider this. There's a digitally animated warrior mouse in this movie, and the fact that he's voiced by the sassy, snappy comic Eddie Izzard means he steals the picture. Peter Dinklage ("Elf") is near center-stage as Trumpkin, a warrior dwarf. The two of them so outclass the rest of the cast that you wonder if they teach "charisma" at the Actors Studio.
It's a year later in World War II Britain, and the four Pevensie kids — Lucy, Edmund, Peter and Susan, are only just now adjusting to being back "at home," where they must contend with everyday annoyances instead of holding the fate of a fairy kingdom in their hands.
But these "royals" are summoned back to Narnia, where more than 1,300 years have passed. Narnians — including talking animals, centaurs, fauns, dwarves and the like — are "extinct" (actually just in hiding). The Telmarines, a heartless race of Spanish-accented hoodlums, long ago seized control. But good Prince Caspian (Ben Barnes of "Stardust") might put that to rights.
If only he can survive his treacherous uncle's (Sergio Castellitto of "Mostly Martha") assassination attempt. If only he can blow that magical horn like his Merlin-like "professor" (Vincent Grass; no, I've never heard of him either) that will bring the four kid-rulers back to Narnia to set things to right.
If only he can stop imitating Mandy Patinkin's Inigo Montoya accent from "The Princess Bride." ("Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Preparrrrrrre to die.")
The kids return to a land that hasn't seen its Father, Son and Holy Lion, Aslan, in more than a thousand years. But Lucy (Georgie Henley) starts having visions of him. Why can't the others?
"Maybe you're not ready," she says, biblically.
Maybe Aslan helps those who help themselves, the combative Peter (William Moseley) reasons. So he rounds up the troops and wages war against a Conquistador-equipped army of Telmarines, with centaurs, badgers and bears, oh my.
It's not shaping up as a great summer for children's entertainment. The equally eye-candyish "Speed Racer" started amusingly and petered out. "Caspian" begins slowly and can't really be rescued by the never-ending battles that comprise its latter half. The effects are sharper, the New Zealand fairyland locations almost as impressive.
But where's the heart, the angst, the magic? Only one death has any resonance, and that's the death of an extra. The leading men don't hold the screen at all, and the plucky archer Susan (Anna Popplewell) doesn't have enough to do to make us forget how much she looks (and acts) like Miley Cyrus.
Returning "Narnia" director Andrew Adamson, a native of New Zealand whose "Shrek" won an Oscar, shows improvement in the way he stages the film's fights. But nothing off the battlefield is visually arresting or the least bit magical.
Life is always much easier for a movie critic when he or she doesn't have to bash a beloved children's book adaptation, a Disney film (they take it personally), or a story that's an allegory for Christians (who take it even more personally). But Disney needs to wrench this seven-book franchise away from Walden.
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