Saw Prince Caspian this past weekend. I’ll share some thoughts on it below, but first I thought I’d follow up on another post I made in reference to the Planet Narnia book by Dr. Michael Ward. Hugh Hewitt had the author on his show (click “listen now” and then go forward about 10 minutes) a couple weeks ago.
Fascinating stuff. Anyway, on to the film.
First thing I noticed about the film: the kids’ acting was much improved. They were pretty ho hum in the first movie. Not terrible by any means, but they did remind me of watching the old BBC Narnia films (except, you know, they weren’t ugly).
Second thing I notice: the changes from the book, and the fact that, surprisingly, they didn’t bug me at all! I was amazed. Except for Caspian and Susan making googley eyes at each other (LAME and unnecessary), I thought some of the ideas were in the spirit of the book and worked well- much better than, say, completely destroying the character of Faramir beyond all recognition in The Two Towers (the more time goes by, the more I just hate that Jackson et al made that decision- it was completely unnecessary and made NO sense in the movie).
I enjoyed this one WAY more than the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe. I have several friends that will hate me for saying so, butI thought the first one was just stupid awful. I really can’t stand it. And this is very odd, because I have always thought that Caspian is by far the worst story of the series, and Lion is probably the second best (after The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, of course).
However, improved does not mean great. It had its problems. Some of these Narnia movies will need to be PG-13 to be able to show the things on screen that need to be shown (I’m thinking of The Silver Chair and The Last Battle primarily), and this one definitely suffered from the PG rating. A movie such as this one, based primarily on 2 large scale, sword and archery waged battles simply does not have the realistic feeling it desperately needs to make you interested in the fate of the characters. Not only that, but Aslan is supposed to be scary in this story. And he most definitely is NOT. I mean, I know that marketing wise it would probably be suicide to churn out seven PG-13 narnia flicks (or even 3 of them), but parents let their kids see rough stuff all time if the parents consider it to have merit. A good example is Saving Private Ryan or Schindler’s List; graphically disturbing R rated movies to be sure, but I know very conservative Christian parents who have no problem letting their older (14ish age) kids watch them because they are meaningful and beneficial films to watch. On a much lesser violent scale, the Narnia movies could have been equally valuable to younger kids. These movies are just too fluffy and cute, and as a result lose the real meaning behind them. The redemption story in Lion was weak. And this story, which is supposed to be about the power and might of Aslan and the nature of a relationship with him in the world of Narnia, has been rendered powerless. Which brings me to the other major problem I am having with these films: Aslan himself.
Now, Liam Neeson doesn’t work as Aslan for me at all, but that’s not the only or even the primary reason Aslan has so far been a failure. The Aslan of the films is not powerful. He is not majestic, fearsome, mighty, mysterious or holy. He is just sort of big and fluffy, and roars now and then. There is no inspiration of awe. When watching Aslan, you are supposed to be thinking, “If I inhabited that fantasy world, I would be drawn to Aslan- I would love him, fear him, and worship him.” Can anyone honestly say this about the portrayal of the Great Lion in the Narnia films? Now, I know this is a monumental task. But so is building a road, and if someone built a road that didn’t go anywhere (much like these films seem to be doing), I’d still complain to them. Loudly.
I really want for these films to be good- truly I do. I don’t get off on being negative and raining on everyone’s parade. I would much rather be able to get 10 times as excited about the next Narnia flick as I am about the next Spiderman, Harry Potter, or Batman. But based on what we have seen so far, I can’t.
I will say, though, that the improvements over the first one are substantial and I am holding out some hope that my favorite of the books- The Voyage of the Dawn Treader- will be the one where all the lessons have been learned, and we really get to immerse ourselves in the world Lewis (NOT Andrew Adamson!) created.
We’ll see. To sum up: overall not a bad effort, especially considering this is probably (in my opinion) the weakest book of the entire series.
