Movie Review of Prince Caspian

My wife and I had the pleasure of attending the evening showing of the new movie The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian with our church's youth group last Friday evening.

The youth group had been working hard for weeks studying the first films Christian values and subtle biblical metaphors' to hype themselves for the release of the second movie Prince Caspian.

In this adaptation of the second installment in the C. S. Lewis series The Chronicles of Narnia, readers of the book may notice several differences from the books story line, but the basic plot and moral values are still intact.

The movie starts with a son being born to Miraz thus giving him an heir to his throne, so he orders his soldiers to kill Prince Caspian in his sleep to allow his son's future right to the throne as king of Narnia. Prince Caspian is quickly informed of this by his professor, and he flees the castle in the night into the woods. There he is hunted down by Miraz's soldiers, the prince blows on the magic horn he is given to summon help, thus inadvertently summoning the four Pevensie children to return to Narnia as the Kings and Queens of the old kingdom. To fight along side Prince Caspian and the wondrous creatures of Narnia in battle to reclaim the kingdom from the tyrannical and murderous Telmarines who savagely had driven the creatures of Narnia into hiding centuries before.

This film has several grand scale battles with dazzling special effects and choreography, far more in depth than the first film. Its moral values can be taken to heart in several scenes as each person starts to doubt the Lion Aslan will return to save them. Through out the film young Lucy excitedly shouts out how she can see Aslan in the distance, but the other children can't see him. When she finally encounters him towards the end of the film Aslan asks her why she didn't keep looking for him when the others doubted her. She responds with "Cause I was afraid they would still make fun of me", which hits to the point of why most people don't share or show their Faith in Jesus do to the fact that they will be teased by non believers.

The film also touches on vengeance several times as Prince Caspian slowly learns that Miraz had His father killed so he could claim his throne, thus driving Caspian to want to kill Miraz at several points as he is blinded by rage. In the end when Peter defeats Miraz in a sword fight he offers Caspian the chance to kill Miraz and Caspian shows mercy towards his evil uncle. Miraz's shock by Caspian's compassion only lasts for minutes though as he is quickly killed by his general who is eager to continue the battle for Narnia.

This film has a PG rating due to the violence in the battles and fight scenes, there is very little blood shown, but some of the creatures may frighten younger children especially the evil wolf and demon/lizard type woman that tries to tempt Caspian in to summoning the White Witch to return to power in the kingdom to aid in the battle.

Young and old alike though will get a chuckle out of the bold sword wielding mouse Reepicheep who fancies himself as a macho warrior only to learn humility in the end when his tail is cut off in battle, but restored by the power of Aslan.

Overall The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian is a grand film, and is a worthy sequel to the first movie. It is produced by Disney Films so you know it has the budget and animation talent behind it to be a visually spectacular movie. When we when to see it two weeks after the premier it was still showing in three of the eight theaters in the local multiplex, so that shows it's dynamic financial profitability to say the least. I would recommend this movie to teens and adults, but for younger children under thirteen parents may want to accompany them to help explain some to the battles and metaphor's that a younger audience may not grasp or mistake for mindless violence.