Bill Wine reviews ‘The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian’

This sequel is an equal.

Which is to say, with the new Chronicle, it offers slightly stronger visuals and slightly weaker story values, so, overall, you can pretty much expect the same level of quality as the original delivered.

In this second children’s adventure, the four British Pevensie siblings are summoned back to Narnia from London during the World War II blitz to do battle with a new enemy, who is threatening to render the kindly creatures who inhabit this enchanted kingdom extinct.

The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, based on the second book in the fantasy cycle by C.S. Lewis, follows The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, which was based on the first, to the family-film marketplace. And it’s been produced on a somewhat larger scale, with additional cast, effects, comic bits, battle scenes, and CGI creatures — which is what happens when your first entry makes three-quarters of a b-b-billion bucks.

But bigger doesn’t mean better. In this case it means darker and grittier.

TCON:PC is set one year later in the lives of the Pevensies, but a whopping 13 centuries later in Narnia time. A lot has changed. The evil King Miraz now rules and the quartet of youngsters is enlisted to help overthrow the king so that his exiled nephew, Prince Caspian (Ben Barnes joins the large cast, but he isn’t assigned much to do) can claim his rightful throne.

That’s before lunch. All they have to do after lunch is get home.

The four young performers, each marginally more seasoned and effective, return: William Mosely as Peter, Anna Popplewell as Susan, Skandar Keynes as Edmond, and Georgie Henley as Lucy. Liam Neeson reprises his voice-of-God Aslan the Lion, and Tilda Swinton returns momentarily as the White Witch, but both are in radically reduced roles. Instead, Sergio Castellitto climbs aboard as the murderous Miraz, while Eddie Izzard joins the fantasy fray as a swashbuckling mouse named Reepicheep.

New Zealander Andrew Adamson, who directed and co-wrote the first live-action installment and co-directed the first two animated Shrek flicks — and is thus no stranger to spectacular box office success — is both director and co-scenarist once again. And his handling of the integration of people and special effects creatures is remarkably smooth.

And once again, the script could be read as a religious allegory for those looking for that sort of thing, but it’s certainly not the film’s — or author Lewis’s — surface agenda.

Even more than before, the film is a technically impressive feast for the eyes. But the more the film builds to a large-scale final-reel climax, overwhelming the fanciful narrative, the less charming and compelling and impactful it gets.

It’s not so much that TCON:PC isn’t gracefully magical; it’s that it’s a lot less gracefully magical than its makers thinks it is. It is, however, stately and patient and handsome.

If it succeeds as spectacle, however, it nonetheless offers far too much in the way of combat sequences, much of them annoyingly repetitive and a lot less than convincing.

So, yes, the well-over-two-hours extravaganza does overstay its welcome, but not enough to bother youngsters much or to short-circuit plans for another sequel. Look for The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader in 2010.

So we’ll chronicle 2-1/2 stars out of 4 for The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian. And for the kids’ maximum understanding and enjoyment, have them see the first Chronicle first.