Word: caspian
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe premiered in late 2005 and earned a burly $291.7 million at the domestic box office, plus $453.1 million abroad, briefly becoming Walt Disney Co.'s all-time top-grossing live-action film. The first sequel, The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, has just arrived, with blockbuster expectations. And the next chapter, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, has already reserved the first May weekend of 2010 to open in movie theaters around the world...
...their young charges to see it and because the range of ages of the four young heroes gave kids from 6 to 16 someone to identify with. Disney marketed the film smartly, playing up the Christian aspects to religious groups and playing them down to everyone else. Now Prince Caspian (directed, like the first film, by Andrew Adamson) should be a box-office dynamo...
That's because it elbows the kid stars into the background to concentrate on the character who, if the movies follow the books, will dominate the next two films in the series. That's Caspian (Ben Barnes), the rightful heir to the throne of the Telmarines, who currently rule Narnia. He escapes the castle just before evil Lord Miraz (Sergio Castellitto) can kill him and is exiled among rancorous dwarfs, a talking badger, centaurs and minotaurs, the recently returned four Pevensie children and, after a high body count, Aslan (voiced by Liam Neeson...
Barnes, a 26-year-old recruit from the London stage, looks like a softer Keanu Reeves and speaks in a Mediterranean accent a bit too reminiscent of Mandy Patinkin's in The Princess Bride. In this film, Caspian is a callow gallant, too sensitive in his fights with Miraz to close the duel. (He'll grow up fast in the next one.) But the CGI supporting characters are the big attraction here: Reepicheep, a mouse with some of the charming swagger of Antonio Banderas' Puss in Boots from the Shrek movies; stately tree warriors who come to Caspian...
There's also a smidgen of theology, in the youngest girl's faith that Aslan will materialize. He does, of course, to warn her, "Things never happen the same way twice." That goes for stories of belief when they're turned into big commercial movies. Prince Caspian does its job as epic-size entertainment. If parents want a real adventure with a more overt Christian message, they can curl up with the New Testament...