Movie Review: Prince Caspian A Festival Of Usurpury

And when I say usurpury, I'm not just talking about the plot line where Miraz the Telmarine kills Caspian IX with a view to the throne. No, it seems there are other usurpers out there, who, like Miraz, seem to have a love for the Narnian empire, but not the land itself, and are willing to overthrow Jack Lewis in order to sit on his mythic throne. We will call them "Walden Media."

Fifteen minutes into Prince Caspian, I was impressed by a few of the alterations made to the script. I liked the way things began with the Caspian storyline first, and led up to the return of the Pevensies. I thought the amended escape from Miraz's castle was a necessary addition to the plot to make it screen-friendly. But then they started messing with some things that they didn't need to (and shouldn't have).

I will not go into hull-crush depth as to everything that I found to be a betrayal of Lewis' original intent. I will only mention three elements which I found problematic, and open the combox for further critique. I will leave off my lament about the mishandling of Aslan, because it's a several thousand-word rant in and of itself, and the omissions and alterations in regard to him should be obvious to even the most casual Narnia fan.

First, while Reepicheep's action sequences were extremely well done, the characterization of Reepicheep himself was badly mishandled. In the book, he is valiant, chivalrous, and proper. In the movie, however, he is a smart aleck, and his courtesies come off as so much brown-nosery. At one point, he tells Trumpkin to "shut up," a line which Lewis would never have put in his noble mouth.

Speaking of Trumpkin, he isn't the lively storyteller who moves from doubt to faith, like he is in the book; instead, he is sullen, and plays the comic-relief equivalent of Eeyore, or perhaps Marvin the Robot. Highly disappointing.

But perhaps the most disappointing tweak of all is the awkward adolescent farewell kiss between Susan and Caspian. This addition is forced, and unsettling, and was obviously included in order to woo more romantically inclined audiences who might have had trouble sitting through the darker and more violent scenes. Lewis certainly didn't add that spin to his original tale. He vented his Narnian romantic urges on Cor and Aravis in The Horse and His Boy. The last-second smooch was obligatory, unnecessary and contrived.

Watching the first two Narnia movies has led me to believe that the producers of these films have somehow managed to make some Arian scissor-mark down the middle of these stories, dividing their plot from their spirit. I will continue to watch and appreciate these movies, but only as blockbuster screen fantasies, and not as the meaningful myth on which they are based.