My first trip to the movie theater in months (the last movie I saw there was Sweeney Todd) consisted of, well, sort of, a double feature. This is the movie I came to the theater intending to see. In all fairness, I was not over-fond of Andrew Adamson's The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (LLW) when it came out. For those of you who read my blog regularly and don't already know these quirks about me, here are some qualifiers: 1) I love fantasy, and most trips to the theater involve seeing those fantasy films that appeal to me. 2) My favorite books of all time, in this order, are The Lord of the Rings (plus the Hobbit); the Harry Potter series; and the Chronicles of Narnia. 3) As a result, I hold any adaptations of said books to a stringent level of crticism.
I read the Chronicles as a child the first time and was hooked. I still pull them out occasionally. CS Lewis, though he wrote the novels as allegory for various Biblical stories and events, spun some magical yarns apart from that aspect that really pique the imagination. Prince Caspian, according to the original publishing order (not the chronologically reordered HarperCollins set), is the second book, but it's probably my third favorite of the seven, after LLW and the Voyage of the Dawn Treader, and I know it pretty well. The trouble is, the screenwriters and director, aside from some key plot events and characters, seemed to throw the book out entirely and create their own story. The first movie (LLW) did this as well, but the revisions were more embellishments than actual revisions. Prince Caspian (PC) takes the embellishments to all new, and less preferable, levels as well as contains completely rewritten elements, and the filmmakers cannibalize other book-to-film adaptations in the process.
The titular character (Ben Barnes) is heir to the throne of Narnia, until his usurping Uncle Miraz (Sergio Castellito) and Aunt Prunaprismia give birth to a son. Caspian is forced to run into hiding, as Miraz means to kill him as he did his father. Caspian is forced deep into the woods, which are feared by his people, humans called Telmarines (it's not explained, but Telmar is a land adjacent to Narnia). The Telmarines have long since conquered Narnia and banished its true inhabitants, Talking Beasts and Dwarves and Fauns and Tree-People, into hiding, though stories of them, of the ancient Kings and Queens, and of the Lion Aslan still prevail. In the film, Caspian discovers a badger named Trufflehunter and Dwarves named Trumpkin (Peter Dinklage) and Nikabrik (Warwick Davis) - but not without using the gift given to him by his tutor, Doctor Cornelius. He blows Queen Susan's magic horn for help. Fortunately, these three Narnians (through reluctantly on Nikabrik's part) accept Caspian as the savior of their people by his very possession of the Horn, nominate him to be their King, and encourage him to make war on Miraz. In the meantime, the Horn's magic summons Peter (William Moseley), Susan (Anna Popplewell), Edmund (Skandar Keynes), and Lucy (Georgie Henley) Pevensie from, according to the film, a Tube station in London, where they sit waiting to go to school, to Narnia. What they come to realize is that hundreds of years have passed; the Narnia they knew is no more, as their former castle, Cair Paravel, lays in ruin. When Trumpkin is captured and banished to the island holding these ruins, the four Pevensies learn of the fate of Narnians at the hands of the Telmarines and Miraz,and set about helping Caspian in his quest to save Narnia.
This is the bullet point plot summary. There are other layers I have not even begun to touch on. I can't say I completely hated PC, but I didn't like it, either. I have never seen a more revisionist adaptation to film in my life. Not only are events completely changed--Caspian, in the book, for example, does not blow the horn until he and his Narnian counterparts are already deep into a losing battle with Miraz and his troops--but certain aspects are created that were never in the book. In the film, for example, the Pevensie children seem to be more spectators of their own history than integral to the plot, at least until the last third of the movie. The character development is lackluster at best on all fronts, but this is what we do know: Peter is quite a heel, angry and insecure, and determined to assert his male dominance in all situations to prove to himself that he is mature (this was never in the book). Susan and Caspian have romantic feelings toward one another, and she's much calmer and gentler than in the book (the writers chose to make her a prat in the first movie, instead, I guess). Lucy never stands up for herself as she does in the book when she thinks she finally sees Aslan (voiced by Liam Neeson) when they are lost. The only true characterization of the children is Edmund, though Skandar played him as seemingly a little depressed most of the time.
The screenwriters also chose to make Caspian the reluctant hero a la the hero's journey (which is flawed because he is already a prince, not an everyman) rather than a man-boy who had heard stories of Narnia all his life and was moved to fight for that cause because of his deep love for those stories. None of the Narnian characters retain the spirit of the characters as written in the book - except Reepicheep (voiced by Eddie Izzard). I just felt like I was watching something that ignored its source material most of the time and tried to force themes and situations into the story that CS Lewis never even intended. It's a sign when adapted screenplays fail to use hardly any of the dialogue written in the book; I can think of maybe three scenes that used actual dialogue from the book in PC.
Let's talk about the embellishments themselves. There were lots more battles than in the book, including an attempt, led by Peter, to storm Miraz's castle. The one-to-one fight between Peter and MIraz was exciting and true to story, though it coincided with Lucy running to find Aslan (when he should have already been found by then). Susan apparently scoffs at those archaic, male-dominant conventions and fights in the battles with her bow. All of this would be well and good if the battles, as filmed, did not borrow liberally from the Lord of the Rings films in such an obvious and sort of tacky way. Lewis and JRR Tolkien were contemporaries and friends, to be sure, and likely influenced each other, but this was overboard. When Susan takes out several oncoming Telmarine soldiers with her bow, it reminded me of Legolas in the Fellowship of the Ring. The trees storming the battle at Aslan's How were reminiscent of the Ents in the Two Towers, and the whole battle with staged Narnians on the How and the oncoming Telmarines echoed of the penultimate battles in the Two Towers and Return of the King films. It felt, honestly, plagaristic.
The acting was also terrible on most fronts. The only convincing actor was Georgie Henley, who played Lucy, but she was clearly given no direction past some well-timed tears and laughter at various points.
That's not to say that I hated the whole film. The sets were awesome and very true to the pictures I had in my mind of the Narnian places described by Lewis. Aslan's How, with the pictograms on the walls and the Stone Table at its heart, was the best of all. Not all of the embellishments were bad: the scene in which the Hag and Werwolf beg to conjure the White Witch to face Miraz was a nice touch. The visual effects continued to be impressive. Also, Harry Gregson-Williams provided another wonderful score that far surpasses the wonder I was supposed to feel by what I was watching.
When I saw LLW the first time, I felt that it was taken to places I didn't quite agree with, but I thought it was a good, exciting movie that could stand on its own, apart from the source book and other filmed adaptations of the original novel (such as the BBC version that's now almost 20 years old, gasp). PC is so much different, and not in a good way, that I gave up even trying to compare. Then, when I sat back to try to enjoy the film on its own merits, it turned out to be uninspired and, frankly, a little boring, with some wooden acting. All in all, it was a disappointing effort, though there were some scenes that were entertaining.
As such, I have to rate this movie a 6 for being "cute" because that's what it was. Like I said, there were parts I enjoyed and some scenes and aspects were done well, so it gets a point for being more than just mediocre. As for the test, though, it probably passes. Like with LLW, I might like it better if I see it again. I will say that this film is more complete than the BBC's hour-long version. Also, I have this obsessive-compulsive need to complete series. Still, it won't be one I watch often because it's so different from the original novel, it made me a little sad in the end. And I don't think PC, like children's fantasy and the book it was based, was intended to be sad.