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'Prince Caspian': A fun, if uneven ride

Rating:

By Mina Hochberg | amNewYork movie critic

May 16, 2008

From the sweeping New Zealand battle cinematography to the army of angry, mobile trees, it's impossible not to see "The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian" as a rip-off of "The Lord of the Rings." That said, despite the bloated 138-minute running time, "Caspian" is impressively dark and engaging for a movie that's geared toward children.

"Prince Caspian" picks up 1,300 years from where "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" left off -- 1,300 years in Narnia time, that is, but only one year in London time. The Pevensie children are summoned back to Narnia by the young Prince Caspian, who's on the run from his throne-usurping uncle Miraz. Together, Caspian and the Pevensies band with the dwarves, minotaurs, gryphons and other creatures of Narnia, who have all been marginalized into mythical status, to overthrow Miraz.

There's something absorbing about the actors playing the Pevensie children, something more understated than the Scholastic brand of chirpy Harry Potter charm. Their countenances are grave as they take their roles as saviors of Narnia seriously, almost to the point of being killjoys.

But they do crack jokes to remind us that they're only kids, and this streak of humor punches up the dialogue to genial comic effect -- though there's an equal number of iffy jokes that clearly cater to a more forgiving pre-adolescent crowd.

Two-plus hours is far too much time to spend rolling out what's ultimately an anemic plot: Caspian and the Pevensies attack Miraz, retreat, and then get attacked on their own turf in a battle of David and Goliath proportions. In between, there's a random hodge-podge of forest-wandering, Aslan sightings and an out-of-place cameo by the White Witch.

A hint of a power struggle emerges between King Peter Pevensie and Prince Caspian, but it's nothing that runs too deep. This sort of character one-dimensionality doesn't help the lulls between the action -- they're either heroes or villains, with little moral gray area to make matters interesting.

Overall, though, "Prince Caspian" is an entertaining, if uneven, ride, provided you can stomach cutesy CGI mice who brandish toothpick-sized swords and dispense Napoleon-complex jokes. "Narnia" is graduating from kiddie fare into a franchise of bona fide epic proportions.

The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian Directed by Andrew Adamson and starring Ben Barnes, William Mosely, Anna Popplewell, Georgie Henley, Skandar Keynes