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The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian

C.S.Lewis’s seven-volume series The Chronicles of Narnia is one of those fantasy series that only looks like a good fit for film.

Sure, it’s got talking animals and sweeping battles and sword-wielding heroes, but all the fun stuff is the kind of minor details that movies – only having a limited amount of time and space – have to leave out, and all the stuffy, stiff-upper lip stuff that provides much of the series’ charm gets left out because kids today supposedly can’t relate to it.

But even so, Prince Caspian is still a big step up from the extremely clunky The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

While only a year or so has passed for our heroes back in World War 2 London, centuries have passed in Narnia, leaving Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy more than a little confused when they return to find their kingdom not only in ruins, but under the rule of a harsh nation of human invaders.

Fortunately, the titular Prince Caspian and rightful ruler of these invaders is the one who summoned them, having fled his usurper uncle moments before he would have been killed in his bed.

So once again it’s goodies versus baddies, and if you guessed there’d be a huge battle at the end you wouldn’t be far wrong – though that battle does have a couple of nice twists to keep it fairly fresh, and with a lot less “Aslan the Magic Jesus-Surrogate Lion” than the first film there’s a lot more room for the goodies to get things wrong.

This doesn’t blaze any new trails for the fantasy genre but the occasional witty moment and solid performance thankfully makes it (slightly) less likely that you’ll confuse the second in the Narnia series for The Lord of the Rings‘ dim-witted cousin.