Like Harry Potter, C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia books grow up a bit with each instalment, getting darker and more complex in their characterizations and motivations.
Not coincidentally, its author's Christian-proseletysing also becomes more obvious in the later novels (particularly when it gets to the villainous, dark-skinned, turban-wearing Calormenes, who worship a "false Aslan," a shabby facsimile of the Christ-like lion who is the moral light of the series.
We'll see what the box office is in the Muslim world when they get around to those movies).
The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian -- the movie of which hits theatres today -- represents a moody, action-packed flashpoint in the arc of Narnia. And it adds grownup appeal to the series, officially replacing the Pevensies, the four British school kids of The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe, with a single, handsome and charismatic warrior on whom to hang the franchise for two sword-clanging epic sequels.
The brooding Ben Barnes in the title role stakes his claim to centre-stage almost immediately.
That's not to say we don't get plenty of Peter (William Moseley), Susan (Anna Popplewell), Edmund (Skandar Keynes) and Lucy (Georgie Henley). But Lewis tended to toss out characters from book to book and to replace them before they got a chance to get stale.
Prince Caspian is practically one long battle scene after another -- the better to fill out its way-long two-and-a-half-hour running time (the books are short, but partly at the behest of Lewis' estate, the movies reproduce them exhaustively).
It opens 1,300 years after the events in The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe, in the royal castle of the Telmarines. There, a baby is born and, immediately thereafter, a murder attempt is carried out against the life of Prince Caspian (Ben Barnes), rightful heir to the throne of this sort-of-Mediterranean-accented seafaring race that has taken over Narnia.
On the run in a forbidden forest, Caspian finds that legends of dwarves, centaurs and talking animals are very real.
Meanwhile, a year after their own adventures (during which they've had trouble making the jump from monarchs to school children), the Pevensies find themselves once again transported to Narnia -- but a Narnia in ruins, in which they are but a mythic memory.
There is no Aslan in sight, except in glimpses by Lucy, who is, as usual, not believed.
So, no Aslan (for most of the movie, at least). And despite what you see in the trailers, no White Witch (Tilda Swinton) but for a cameo that embellishes a mention of her in the book. (Look closely, however, and you will also see Swinton playing a centaur in one scene.)
Awakened to the near genocide of the Narnians by his own people, and backed by the blessing of the legendary Kings and Queens, Prince Caspian carries on what seems like an unwinnable war against his own -- with special vengeance directed at the usurper of this throne, his Uncle Miraz (evilly played by Sergio Castellitto). The biggest character change from the last movie arguably belongs to Susan, who goes all Xena: Warrior Princess on us with her bow-and-arrow.
With less to explain, there is a little more room for improvised humour in this version -- the prime perpetrators being comedian Eddie Izzard (who voices the warrior-mouse Reepicheep) and an all-but-unrecognizable Peter Dinklage, who plays the curmudgeonly dwarf Trumpkin.
It all comes down to a pretty Old Testament final act.
Think of Exodus.
C.S. Lewis certainly did.
(This film is rated PG)
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