Now Playing: Prince Caspian (Chronicles of Narnia)

Went to see Prince Caspian (finally! honestly, the things I do for friends...) last night. Spoilers abound in the following review, so please don't read it if you're interested in seeing it or reading the book.

Let's get the inevitable movie-book comparisons out of the way. Prince Caspian as a book only has a couple of "blockbuster" scenes (the castle and the battle at the end); as a whole, the book is quite slow. The screenplay does an excellent job of adapting the book into a familiar story (right down to quoting specific lines) and of keeping fairly true to the book (some minor exceptions revolving around Aslan and Caspian's tutelage aside, which, I understand, were cut due to time). The characters were also pretty true to form (especially Edmund and Lucy), though Susan was bit more forward than her literary counterpart and Peter felt a little over-confident. The Narnians, those that made it onto the screen, were great: more on them below. All in all, the adaptation is as good as it gets in Hollywood when given such a non-Hollywood story.

Now for the movie. I found prince Caspian lacking a backbone as his Uncle accused him; Ben Barnes couldn't seem to muster up any real passion (though I did enjoy his accent). All the kids (except Skandar Keynes) should probably brush up on their acting, especially Georgie Henley. They should hang out with that scene-stealer Tilda Swinton, who worked her own special magic to make her 90 seconds of the film probably the best 90 seconds in it. The Narnians were the best group, by far: Reepicheep's "you people have no imagination" is bang on; Trumpkin and Nikabrik were well-scripted and acted; even Bulgy Bear's paw-sucking moment during the duel and his little wave at the end were tiny perfections. The movie was well-paced, choosing to focus on the things that make this a cinematic (and not literary) success. I would have liked to have seen the castle raid scene expanded (I'm hoping for an extended edition on DVD) and more Aslan, but these are nitpicks.

Though the movie is an improvement upon the first one, it's still not as good as it could be, given the fantastic source material. I almost feel like director hasn't read the books and so can't seem to capture the spirit of the thing. Something is definitely missing, but I don't know what it is. 3.5 out of 5 stars.

One final note: if you haven't seen the first one, don't bother to start with this one. This movie is not a standalone and you will be lost.