Now, I don’t know about you, but I’m sort of looking forward to tasting some Illithid Brain Juice!

OK… So to prove that not everything i am a not a big initial fan of is put directly on my shit list here is my review of the new Narnia.

My background with the books is slim to none, but i did end up seeing most of the adaptations for PBStv/BBCtv howevermany years ago that was. I remember it being kinda cool, but being thrown off by the humans in animal suits. Not a huge fan of humans in animal suits. Don’t have enough furry tendancy to really like em. So… when the new Narnia movie series came out i was a little excited. I thought kinda cool would be upgraded to really cool. Unfortunately that time i was thrown of by some shaky acting (kids. what could i expect right?) and a less than fluid story line. I could still sorta count myself a fan cause it had just about every fantasy creature i could think of, but the only really neat thing they did with em was the massive battle at the end. Now that my history with it is sorta established, here is my positive review of the new one..

Gotta say up front, that i really enjoyed this movie. I don’t consider it the work of art that Iron Man turned out to be, but it kept me interested and enjoying it through just about everything. A few minor hiccups were the minor acting flaws of the kids, and the new kid, but nothing to ruin the movie.

Gonna start with visuals. Nearly everything in this movie was beautiful. Excellent settings that helped convey the mood of the scenes, as well as CG that was mostly relegated to support instead of primary imagery, put the visual mood of everything right up my ally. Creatures were beautifully done. The only exception was the centaurs who were a definite improvement over the previous movie, but still looked awkward every time they tried to move. This one even had what i consider the leading contender for best quality flying creature to be done in a fantasy movie. The griffons were seemlessly integrated with actors for some really cool combat situations. This movie did a really excellent job of integrating all sorts of creatures perfectly into the feel of the movie, with the shining example being Reepicheep. I dare people not to like a swashbuckling mouse. I dare you people.

So.. characters next then. Reepicheep is perfectly done by Eddie Izzard, and the other supporting fantasy characters are handled with a lot of care and finesse. The lead dwarf was an excellent example the dour fantasy race, surprisingly not done by Warwick Davis, but instead Peter Dinklage. Great casting for the character. I have been a fan of his for a while and look forward to seeing him in more movies. Liam Neesan also does a perfect job as Aslan again, but is used very little in the movie. What it comes down to is this. All of the peripheral characters are so good that it distracts you (or at least me) from the fact that the kids aren’t the best characters ever created. They don’t have much going for them because they are so flat and under developed. The only exception is the younger brother, that shows some development between the movies, and proves that he has grown up a bit. But he is mentioned so little, that after two movies, i still don’t know his name. What adds to the problem is that unless you remember the first movie pretty well, you will miss this character development completely.

Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian is a good fun movie, that keeps you on an enjoyable ride though beautiful places and colorful characters. It doesn’t develop any of them terribly well, but there is so much fun stuff to see that you just might overlook (or miss completly) the faults of the movie

89% outa 100. A good nearly “A” movie.

-The j suN