Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian

Rating:	★★★★
Category:	Movies
Genre:	Science Fiction & Fantasy

I'm a person who has no pretenses about my cinematic tastes. While others would go for more serious genres - where there are manifold symbolisms and complicated plots - I, on the other hand, want none of that. Reality already has too many of those things, and so I want a movie that does not force me to think (but isn't outrightly stupid either.)

I want a visual spectacle! ...with lots of action scenes and fantastic elements. I want the protagonist to be an underdog/s that prevail/s against all odds in the end. I want a movie that entertains me, rather than making me agonize about hidden meanings after a week's grind in the graveyard shift.

(*A brief digression: I admit that I once went through this phase of wanting to watch only serious films just to test myself if I am smart enough to understand what critics are talking about. Thankfully, after a few years, I've shed this insecurity and I'm now free to watch what i really want to watch.)

In short, I take an escapist approach when watching movies. And in this day and age, I think I can safely say that the term "escapist" has already lost all negative meaning.

It is for this reason that it is virtually impossible for movies like Prince Caspian to disappoint me. While many would rank this a lot lower than The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, I rate them just about even due to the fact that the two movies use basically the same formula. What's nice is that despite having this same predictable formula, Prince Caspian still ends up as a movie that engages its audience.

I don't really care about the inherent Christological symbolisms devised by C.S. Lewis in creating the characters of his Narnia series. There's no need for me to be converted to any religion so I treat that aspect as a non-factor. What pleases me though is the fact that even without thinking of those symbolisms, the movie could stand on its own. It's possible to view the movie in non-religious terms even if one is aware that the creator specifically designed it to describe vignettes of the faith he adheres to.

Of course, there are certain things that one finds hard to accept despite one's propensity to be receptive to fantasy. For example, there's what I call the "Legolas ability" wherein the elder Pevensie girl seemingly has an inexhaustible supply of arrows in her quiver. There's also the duel between the elder Pevensie boy and the much older and battle-experienced antagonist Lord Miraz ...which the former won. One gets the feeling that the presentation of these feats could have been improved somehow.

I have mixed feelings about the aborted comeback of the White Witch. On one hand, a reentry of the original villain could have resulted to a potential 3-way battle. But then, this would have resulted to a more complicated storyline which a lot of children (the target audience) might not be able to follow, and I would have had no patience for.

All in all, it was a good movie by my moviegoing standards. It was entertaining, it wasn't long-winding (despite the 2-hour duration), and it didn't offer promises that it didn't keep. It was a children's fantasy movie, and it certainly accomplished this purpose well.