Prince Caspian

For those readers who have been dying to know what I thought of Prince Caspian (cue crickets chirping), here it is.

Reviews for Prince Caspian fall into 3 broad categories:

1. The irreligious who can't stand CS Lewis' use of fantasy as an allegory for Christianity, and therefore cannot bear any of the Narnia films due to their quasi-proselytising nature.

2. The irreligious who feel that Prince Caspian works as adventure and is more enjoyable than The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe because it's allegorical content is considerably diminished compared to the first movie. A lot of Australian reviews I have read fall into this category.

3. Those who who admire CS Lewis and his aims, and are therefore a little disappointed that the movie does seem to soft peddle the serious side.

I'm not entirely sure that I have read any review that clearly falls into category 3, but that was my reaction. I suspect that (apart from the appalling timing of releasing it a week before Indiana Jones in the States) there are probably significant numbers of American Christians who share the view, and this is a partial explanation for why it seems destined to make barely half of what the first movie made. (Still, as far as I can tell, it won't lose money.)

On the positive side: it looks fantastic, and the use of computer effects is kept to a level where it is not making you think "look at those 50,000 combatants who are obviously all CGI". (I'm looking at you, "Lord of the Rings".)

The story also has the benefit of real humans playing real characters (contrast, again, LOTR) and the acting is fine. Also, Andrew Adamson is really a talented director.

On the downside, Aslan comes and dispenses wisdom and assistance only a couple of times. It's been so long since I read the book (if I did at all; I can't even recall clearly which I have read beyond three titles,) that I am not entirely sure if it is the same there. Certainly many reviewers have noted that the book is perhaps the least interesting of the Narnia series.

I certainly don't want to put anyone off seeing it: it is a fine movie; just one that feels a little lacking if, like me, you loved the first one. (By the way, you can always tell a movie has impressed people when a fair few stay in the cinema watching the credits. That did happen at the screening I went to.)

Of course, one of the most disgraceful things is that Sex and the City beat it at the Australia box office on opening weekend. Can't the Pope issue some sort of condemnation of that film? If we lived in Old Testament times, I would expect God to demand the human sacrifice of Sarah Jessica Parker (on an altar erected in front of some fashion house in New York, the contents of which would form the funeral pyre for her body) as a condition of letting the rest of humanity survive. And that would sound perfectly reasonable to me.