Image copyright © by Marcus Trahan

The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian

(2008)

More of the same … but I liked it a little better. No time is spent with the traveling to the country business, or the mysterious wardrobe. The children are whisked off to Narnia right smartly, where they discover that centuries have passed and everyone they knew is long dead and gone, except maybe for Aslan, the wise and powerful lion. The kids are older this time, and have experienced something very odd, which is never explored very well. At the end of the first movie they are shown as young adults, having lived some years in Narnia, and presumably learned many things. Then they return to our world and find that no time has passed, and they are children once again. Now, that must be real odd, and they refer to it briefly in the few minutes at the beginning of the film, then it is more or less forgotten. But here they are, adult minds in children’s bodies. It would have been interesting if more had been made of that. But the fact of them being older probably was what made this film more appealing to me. That, and the fact that half the movie wasn’t consumed with getting them to Narnia. We were pretty quickly embroiled in the plot, which wasn’t complicated, but was fairly strong. Susan is a stronger character here, and Edmund is grown up from the little weasel he was in the first film. William, the eldest, is again the least interesting of the lot.