Posted on Thu, May. 15, 2008

The new “Narnia” is bigger, better paced, more violent (in an inoffensive PG way) and better produced, with tons of knockout scenery and vast armies colliding.

The only standard by which “The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian” is inferior to its predecessor, “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe,” is in its story.

Well, you can’t have everything.

Returning for a second visit to C.S. Lewis’ beloved kingdom, writer/director Andrew Adamson has given us not so much a religious allegory folded into a children’s story as a vast melodrama about political power and war. It’s like the family-friendly twin of “Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers.”

Lots of us have devoured “The Lion, the Witch…” but after that, readership for the Narnia books drops off. That’s because the first book was the best. Lewis never topped it.

But the new film compensates with visual panache and a few magical set pieces. This is only Adamson’s second live-action feature (he cut his teeth on the animated “Shrek” franchise), but he has become a whiz at delivering an intimate epic, capturing events both huge and quietly personal.

In a prologue we see how the hunky Prince Caspian (Ben Barnes) is targeted for assassination by his evil uncle Miraz (Sergio Castellitto).

Caspian is the heir to the throne of the Telmarine clan, which has ruled Narnia for centuries. But Miraz wants it all for himself (think “Hamlet” or “The Lion King”), and his soldiers pursue the fugitive prince deep into the mysterious forest.

Meantime, the Pevensie siblings — Peter (William Moseley), Susan (Anna Popplewell), Edmund (Skandar Keynes) and Lucy (Georgie Henley) — are back in World War II London, trying to live the quiet lives of normal kids after their stint as Narnian royalty.

No wonder the post-monarchial Peter gets into fistfights … it’s a drag being an English schoolboy after being king.

A busy tube platform (that’s a subway station to you Yanks) becomes the children’s doorway back to Narnia. In a wondrous sequence they are swept up in the wake of a passing train and find themselves deposited on a Narnian seashore.

Their pleasure at being back quickly turns to concern when they realize that the overgrown ruin sitting atop a cliff is actually Cair Paravel, the once-glistening castle from which they ruled.

Evidently 12 months in our world is 1,300 years in Narnian time. With the ascendancy of the cruel Telmarines, all the magic has gone from the land. The centaurs, talking animals and other such creatures have retreated deep into the forest. Aslan the lion hasn’t been heard from in ages.

Most of the narrative is devoted to the efforts of the Pevensies, Caspian and the magic folk to defeat Miraz, who is coming with a huge army.

The film’s highlights are the battle sequences. The forces of good try to infiltrate the Telmarine castle. Peter challenges Miraz to single combat.

And an all-out melee involves thousands of troops, huge catapults, showers of arrows (in one imaginative shot the camera seems to be flying through the air with these missiles), pounding horses and camouflaged pits that swallow up the enemy.

These action scenes have been very effectively staged. All that keeps them from being R-rated is the absence of blood. The swords are as shiny and clean at the end of the fight as they were at the beginning.

In between we are introduced to new characters, relationships and themes.

Among new faces are Peter Dinklage as the dwarf Trumpkin, a surly unbeliever who slowly warms to his new human friends while retaining his ironic sense of humor. Dinklage’s may be the single best performance in the film.

Barnes’ Caspian doesn’t really have to do a whole lot more than look good, but he does that so well one can safely predict that his face soon will be peering down from the bedroom walls of millions of preteen girls.

(For some reason Caspian is fair-skinned and sunny-haired, while his fellow Telmarines, the villains, have the dark locks and complexions of Renaissance Italians. What can you say? Lewis was a jingoistic citizen of an imperialist state.)

The cast of fanciful creations is led by Reepicheep, a swashbuckling computer-generated mouse (voiced by Eddie Izzard) whose braggadocio is way out of proportion to his tiny form. (Look for him to have a bigger role in the next “Narnia” installment, “The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.”)

The Christian subtext that Lewis brought to his yarn is present here as well. While her older sister and brothers believe that Aslan (the series’ Christ figure) will never return and that they’ll have to martial through on their own, the childlike Lucy keeps catching glimpses of the great lion. Her innocent faith ensures his return in the last reel. (Once again Liam Neeson provides the voice.)

On a more worldly note, a rivalry develops between Peter and Caspian, both alpha males determined to be in charge, and there’s a suggestion of a love story between Caspian and the blossoming Susan.

None of this is earthshaking, but “Prince Caspian” is a largely satisfying experience — not too serious and not too silly with just the right “wow” factor.

---

---

---

---

---

---

---