Disney continues the C.S. Lewis' Narnia tales, but this time makes a boring, over-long, disappointing movie.
The setup: After returning to England for a year, the four Pevensie siblings respond to a horn calling for help and return to the magical land of Narnia, only to find that in Narnia 1,300 years have passed. Their old castle is in ruins, and it develops that Narnia has been conquered by some people called Telmarines, who have the accents, spade beards, and helmets of stereotypical Spanish conquistadors. Prince Caspian, who called for help, is one of'em, but his uncle wants him dead so the uncle can become king. The intrepid Pevensie quartet size up the situation and decide to help Caspian and simultaneously rid Narnia of the invaders, with the aid of the usual Narnian characters, including dwarfs, centaurs, a talking badger, and a talkative mouse whose manner & dialog were stolen from Antonio Banderas' Puss-in-Boots in "Shrek 2". Aslan makes a brief but effective (plotwise) appearance near the end but my fave villainess, Tilda Swinton as the White Witch, has only an all-too-short cameo.
I thought the plot was erratically developed and the dialog occasionally funny but pretty much unimaginatively routine for high-fantasy stories. My big problem was that I was never brought to care for any of the characters, whose motivations are murky. The young cast put no emotion into their parts.
I found myself realizing that I was bored several times during the flick's 2 hour & 24 minute length. The whole purpose of the movie seemed to be just to set up the big climactic CGI battle at the end. Unfortunately, the CGI was not up to Peter Jackson's standards, even tho it included a forest of trees that turned into Ents and a flood that copied a scene from "The Fellowship of the Ring".
My favorite moment came in a scene toward the end, when Prince Caspian had his evil uncle at sword point, with both characters talking in their Spanish accents. I wanted to yell out the perfect line for our hero to say: "My name is Prince Caspian. You murdered my father. Prepare to die!" Heck, since most of the flick was derivative of the "Lord of the Rings" movies, why not throw in some "Princess Bride", too?
The setup: After returning to England for a year, the four Pevensie siblings respond to a horn calling for help and return to the magical land of Narnia, only to find that in Narnia 1,300 years have passed. Their old castle is in ruins, and it develops that Narnia has been conquered by some people called Telmarines, who have the accents, spade beards, and helmets of stereotypical Spanish conquistadors. Prince Caspian, who called for help, is one of'em, but his uncle wants him dead so the uncle can become king. The intrepid Pevensie quartet size up the situation and decide to help Caspian and simultaneously rid Narnia of the invaders, with the aid of the usual Narnian characters, including dwarfs, centaurs, a talking badger, and a talkative mouse whose manner & dialog were stolen from Antonio Banderas' Puss-in-Boots in "Shrek 2". Aslan makes a brief but effective (plotwise) appearance near the end but my fave villainess, Tilda Swinton as the White Witch, has only an all-too-short cameo.
I thought the plot was erratically developed and the dialog occasionally funny but pretty much unimaginatively routine for high-fantasy stories. My big problem was that I was never brought to care for any of the characters, whose motivations are murky. The young cast put no emotion into their parts.
I found myself realizing that I was bored several times during the flick's 2 hour & 24 minute length. The whole purpose of the movie seemed to be just to set up the big climactic CGI battle at the end. Unfortunately, the CGI was not up to Peter Jackson's standards, even tho it included a forest of trees that turned into Ents and a flood that copied a scene from "The Fellowship of the Ring".
My favorite moment came in a scene toward the end, when Prince Caspian had his evil uncle at sword point, with both characters talking in their Spanish accents. I wanted to yell out the perfect line for our hero to say: "My name is Prince Caspian. You murdered my father. Prepare to die!" Heck, since most of the flick was derivative of the "Lord of the Rings" movies, why not throw in some "Princess Bride", too?