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The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian

Review By: Michael Dance
MichaelDance@TheCinemaSource.com

Like many kids, I read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe without reading the rest of C.S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia series. Well, I'm pretty sure I read The Magician's Nephew, but I don't remember it. Seven books were a big commitment when there were so many movies I could see instead.

I saw the movie adaptation of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe in 2005, though, and I loved it. I was flooded with nostalgia as I watched the four Pevensie children enter a new world through a wardrobe: I remembered the excitement I felt when they eluded the agents of the evil White Witch, and I remembered how terrifying I found the notion that she could forever turn anyone into stone.

Hearing that the next film would be Prince Caspian, I surprised myself by actually seeking it out and reading it. Narnia purists will note that while Caspian was the second book published, it's actually chronologically the fourth – but since it's the only other volume in which all four Pevensie siblings appear, director Andrew Adamson had to hurry up and make the movie before his actors outgrew their roles.

For the first movie, Adamson and his team made a very straightforward adaptation that simply expanded the story to fit a full-length film. The good news this time around for Caspian is that in many ways, they actually improve on the source material, both structurally and thematically.

At the end of the first movie, the four Pevensie children become the kings and queens of Narnia and grow into adulthood – before coming across the wardrobe again, going back through it, and coming out in the real world as kids again. That means in Caspian, which takes place one year later for them, they're in a certain sense adults trapped in kids' bodies. Lewis glosses over this in the novel, but Adamson explores it: how they would have a hard time adjusting from being royalty to being schoolchildren, and how they'd be desperate to return to the magical world they were able to stay in for so long.

Of course, they do return, only in Narnia time it's been 1300 years: their old kingdom is now in ruins, and the only memories of them are whispered old tales and some cave art. (Imagine