The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian | More action than magic

Prince Caspian - Lucy (Georgie Henley), Peter (William Moseley), Caspian (Ben Barnes), Susan (Anna Popplewell) and Edmund (Skandar Keynes)

Following Peter Jackson’s triumphs with The Lord of the Rings and the continuing success of the Harry Potter franchise, it’s no surprise that Hollywood has sought to plunder another much-loved series of children’s books. Yet after the epic sweep and grandeur of Tolkien and the wit and magic of J. K. Rowling, the fantasy world of C.S. Lewis’s Narnia tales with their plum-voiced child heroes seems decidedly pinched and priggish.

Yet Disney and production partners Walden Media pulled out all the digital stops to bring The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, the first instalment of The Chronicles of Narnia, to the screen in 2005. With Shrek director Andrew Adamson at the helm, the filmmakers did a splendid job of translating Lewis’s story to the big screen - Narnia looked suitably magical, the computer-animated creatures were impressive and the actors playing the tale’s child heroes were equal to the task. Best of all, Tilda Swinton’s icy and imperious White Witch immediately stamped herself as one of the best ever villains of children’s cinema.

The humungous battle scene that climaxed the movie, however, gave a clue that The Chronicles of Narnia’s creators were excessively in thrall to Jackson’s Lord of the Rings films.  Amply expanded from the book and vastly overextended on screen, the fighting hinted that Adamson and co would rather be in Middle Earth than Narnia.

Prince Caspian - Caspian (Ben Barnes)

Prince Caspian, the second in the Narnia series, now available on DVD, has even more swashbuckling action, as the four Pevensie children – Lucy (Georgie Henley, fabulous, again), Edmund (Skandar Keynes), Susan (Anna Popplewell) and Peter (William Moseley) - return to Narnia to help usurped prince Caspian (Ben Barnes, buff but bland) reclaim his kingdom. Sadly, Swinton’s witch only reappears briefly and there’s no sign whatsoever of James McAvoy’s playful faun, Mr Tumnus.

Instead, the emphasis is on all too human intrigue, even if assorted dwarfs, badgers, centaurs, giants and a sword-wielding mouse voiced by Eddie Izzard manage to get into the thick of things too. But the PG-rated battles are so bloodless that there’s little sense of danger, while the emphasis on action rather than fantasy means that there’s even less sense of magic. There’s real wonder in the sequence, early in the film, in which the Pevensie siblings are waiting on a London tube platform and the station’s bricks and tiles suddenly crumble to reveal Narnia in all its splendour, but when the film gets bogged down in the battles the enchantment ebbs away.

Jason Best

A film critic for over 25 years, Jason admits the job can occasionally be glamorous – sitting on a film festival jury in Portugal; hanging out with Baz Luhrmann at the Chateau Marmont; chatting with Sigourney Weaver about The Archers – but he mostly spends his time in darkened rooms watching films. He’s also written theatre and opera reviews, two guide books on Rome, and competed in a race for Yachting World, whose great wheeze it was to send a seasick film critic to write about his time on the ocean waves. But Jason is happiest on dry land with a classic screwball comedy or Hitchcock thriller.