Certainly the argument could be made that in the long run the Chronicles of Narnia are not in fact attempting to fill the shoes of the recently successful Lord of the Rings trilogy - but vice versa. That argument however can only apply to the books, as the films seem to follow the opposite trend. The Chronicles of Narnia can never equate themselve to the Tolkien Movie trilogy and I would be wrong to compare the two beyond their strictly genre-equivalent derivations. So with that, Prince Caspian still doesn\'t quite meet the mark set by the LotR film trilogy - but it\'s getting closer (marginally so).
The story for the children begins one year after the events of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe; unfortunately, Narnia\'s timeline seems to be out of sync with the "real world". 1300 years have passed in the boundaries of the boudoir and all is not as the children had left it. Their kingdom is in shambles and a lone warrior leads the fight against a tyrannical and improper ruler. Prince Caspian not only heads the forces of justice but represents the true heir to the children\'s legacy. Herein the plot becomes the standard formula for fantasy as the collection of child-actors and CGI creatures band together to overcome a set of obstacles to arrive to a final climactic battle on time.
For the journey\'s sake, Prince Caspian sees a major improvement over it\'s prequel both in terms of tone and acting. The acting is still only so-so, but that\'s a major improvement over the performances given by the children during their Narnia stints in the first film. It seems they\'ve gotten a better hang for this thing called acting and are slowly improving their trade. If we\'re lucky, these children will closely resemble their Harry Potter brethren in that each theatrical season will begin bearing exponentially better fruit. Here\'s hoping. Unfortunately, like the Golden Compass and the Narnia film before this one, Prince Caspian relies far too heavily on CGI creations to play major roles in the cast. We\'ll get to the CGI later, but Directors need to realize that just because they have a CGI studio at their fingertips doesn\'t give them an excuse for a cast comprised half of CGI actors. Did we learn nothing from the Lucas Follies of 1999, 2002 and 2005?
To the film\'s credit, the tone of Prince Caspian is substantially darker and more adult than the first. To this critic that\'s an incredible improvement. There\'s something oddly contradictory about having an epic adventure aimed at children. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe suffered from it\'s overly saccharine substance that put this viewer into a sugar coma when all was said and done. With Prince Caspian, gone are the days of overtly childish jokes and vernacular. The fuzzy, furry creatures of the predecessor are exchanged for large beasts wielding sharp objects and tyrants committing atrocities of the worst kinds. Okay, we don\'t get to see most of the atrocities...but we hear about them. That\'s kind of good.
Like in the first, Prince Caspian\'s CGI seems juvenile at best compared to what modern audiences have seen in other epics. While Lucas may have gone overboard with his CGI, he at least had the top CGI department backing him. Prince Caspian has the occasional assistance of Weta to back them up, but for the most part the special effects came from a second-rate effects house - and it shows. Normally, I don\'t judge a films so harshly for its failures in CGI; unless said film has a cast composed 1/3 of CGI creatures. That\'s just unforgivable.
As fantasy goes we\'ve seen many that fared far worse than Prince Caspian - but the C.S. Lewis adaptations have yet to reach major league proportions like the Tolkien superiors. We\'ve seen Disney is willing to abandon the overly childish approach to the series, thus there\'s the potential for future sequels in the series to reach up and into the aforementioned greatness. But then again it\'s Disney, so chances are they\'ll find a way to mess it all up.
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