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The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian
Reviewed by Theo Michelfeld
Posted: May 19, 2008

Minotaurs, centaurs, griffins, walking trees, cockney dwarves, swashbuckling mice, English schoolchildren, talking badgers, a mopey prince with terrific hair, the odd leopard, the occasional elk, and a few other fairy tale stragglers, all come together and march into battle against... bearded Spaniards. Jeez, who do you think will win? As an audience attending the new Narnia flick, we need only put our faith in Hollywood to know that cute and furry will triumph over menacing and hairy. But the film's mythical army can't afford any such assumptions, and so it prevails by choosing the correct deity. That would be Aslan, the lion, who gives his life and rises from the dead, who helps those who help themselves, who opens a window when he closes a door, and who moves in mysterious ways. Wait a minute, Aslan, how 'bout "Love thine enemy?" No? Not so much.

Folks, much has been written about C.S. Lewis' Narnia chronicles, but of course the movies based on these books must stand on their own, just like the Harry Potter movies, and the Lord of the Rings movies, and that Golden Compass nonsense had to stand on their own. Much as I enjoy minotaurs and such, I haven't read any of these books, and so I'm aware, as a critic of the films, that I am sometimes critiquing a quality and credibility that cannot be borrowed from the source material. At other times, I may be critiquing ideas that appear to belong to the author, but which may or may not represent the author's intentions, interpreted as they are by someone else. And then at other times I am probably simply critiquing the author. Anyway, C.S. Lewis' novel Prince Caspian may very well be a spiritually healthy read, or even a quasi-spiritually healthy read. But this movie gives me the creeps.

Prince Caspian is about holy warfare, folks, and features child soldiers, including a serenely smiling pre-teen girl brandishing a small knife against a charging medieval army. She's not afraid to die because her messiah (i.e. the lion) stands behind her. But upsettingly enough, folks, she'd have to be trampled by that army for this film to address the difficult spiritual questions. Adults might comfort themselves by looking at the whole violent affair as a metaphor for internal spiritual struggle. But are kids going to see it that way? Given that there's a war raging right now, and it's the furthest thing from a metaphor, I'd prefer a film that demonstrates the steering clear of battlefields by brave little faithful girls.

As for its entertainment value, Prince Caspian, which is definitely aimed at the teen and pre-teen demographic, has an edge-free and very simplistic narrative that could make it something of a slog for adults. (It's nowhere near as clever as the Shrek films, for instance.) Meanwhile, the level of violence and sheer volume of onscreen fatalities would make it potentially unsuitable for kids, unless we are trying to initialize their bloodthirst at the earliest possible age. Also, the child protagonists are a bunch of tiresome sourpusses, which is wearying to endure as a filmgoer, and also disheartening to see in an overt attempt to indoctrinate children to a particular way of life. Where's Nikki Blonsky when we need her?

The Narnia books and the Golden Compass books (I forget the actual name of that trilogy; it's something like "On Her Satanic Majesty's Secret Service") were supposedly written to brainwash children to the Christian faith and Atheism respectively. And now the film versions are here to continue duking it out for their innocent little souls into the 21st century. Narnia is clearly winning the battle at the box office, but if there is a God folks, and if he is benevolent, he might be wondering why he's once again being associated with marching armies, slashing swords, gleaming armor, skies filled with arrows, battlefields littered with bodies, gung-ho child warriors, and even the marshaling of fuzzy little woodland creatures to war. The devout can always chalk it up to "mysterious ways," I suppose, but they'd be wise to remember that history has shown us, time and time again: The other guy moves that way too.

Copyright © 2008 Theo Michelfeld