Movie Review: Prince Caspian

This remake to one of my favorite children's book series books was not a children's movie. You can write about battles all you want, but actual killing is never as noble or cool as when you write about it. Even movie killing, though still fake, is more horrific and "adult" than children should see.

Gains: +7
This movie, though violent, showed little blood and toned down the horror of battle about as much as is possible without showing an empty screen. The acting was great, from the children to the dwarves to the adults and even the CGI characters. CGI characters usually seem to act according to what the animators think is cool. This gives them an element of unusualness that really shatters my normal, easily-held suspension of disbelief. I think the reason for this movie's success was the contributions of WETA in making actual costumes for the fantastical creatures. The CGI animators then focused on making the animated versions similar to the costuming. It worked flawlessly. The mouse was the only one who was fully animated, and they didn't focus too much on his acting ability.

The story was rewritten and deviated quite a bit from the book. Normally, I hate when Hollywood does this, but that is because they change themes, plot, and characters in such a way that the story is diminished. Prince Caspian, in my opinion, expounded on these story qualities and succeeded in their rewrite. The dialogue was hilarious. The movie took it's time setting up and built to a great battle scene at the end.

Losses: -2
The wrap up at the end was a little melodramatic and felt stitched on. Also, I really hate Aslan's voice. Liam Neeson just doesn't have a deep enough tone to his voice, and Aslan's voice has no growl to it. It just sounds like Liam Neeson talking, which makes me cringe - the king of lions with light, smoothe, Irish-accented English words.

Final Judgement: +5

Loved this movie. It had all the elements I could really enjoy and kept up the suspension of disbelief. You could definitely tell that Lewis and Tolkien were influenced by each other and other similar elements. I hope I never hear ignorant people saying how this movie was just copying LOTR. Anyway, great movie. I will maybe even see it again before it hits the video stands.