December 29, 2008.

Great movie; take the kids!.

Rating: 5
This is a very nice action/adventure movie which is another volume in the C.S. Lewis Narnia series.

There's nothing not to like; nice scenery, nice props, nice characters, nice lion, nice voices, good dialog.

The plot is fairly simple; bad guy wants the throne, and tries to kill the rightful heir.

Rightful heir blows on the magic horn, and the kids from the first movie show up to help (they are, after all, the Kings and Queens of Narnia).

There are a series of adventures, character development, and a rousing hopeless battle of good against evil.

And good triumphs, and it's a good day!

December 27, 2008.

Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (Blu-Ray).

Rating: 4
We liked the movie.
2.5 hours
Overall good entertainment and linkage to first movie was good.
Movie scheme is darker, not as close to the book as we'd like but action in HD was good. Depth and color stood out, but when much is night based it takes away a bit. Blu-Ray is suppose to be able to enhance even the night time movie filming, but this one didn't seem too. Two different HD TVs.

Definitely teenager and up movie. Not one for the younger kids.
Recommend:

December 08, 2008.

Trust me... You can do much better.....

Rating: 2
When the first film came out I saw it right away. I have read all the books numerous times and thoroughly enjoyed each one. While I thought they could have done better with the first film I also recognized that one can only do so much in film adaptions of stories like these. I eagerly anticipated the second film, hoping that it would pick up the slack where the first movie failed and build upon it to make the series great.

Boy, was I disappointed.

Prince Caspian is (unfortunately) a shining example with what is wrong with the fantasy film genre today. Let me take you through just a few of the arguments I have with this film:

1. Actors/Acting - The formula Disney seems to be taking with these films is one we have seen way too many times before: Hire a cast of cute/adorable budding young "actors", maybe throw in a teen heartthrob character (in this case Prince Caspian) and if he can speak in an accent even better! Then cross your fingers and hope that the fact that almost none of them can act will be covered up by their charming good looks. This is terrible and inexcusable. There are plenty of cute AND talented actors out there. This just makes me think they went with the cutest kids they could find and said "Hey do you want to be in a BIG MOVIE?" Now I know this is not the case, but still they could have done so much better.

2. Music - Blah... more of the same. Which in itself might not be too bad if it was given new life. but it really did feel like a rehash of the same stuff we heard in the first film.

3. Cinematography - Ahh! This has really been bothering me and it is something that has bothered me since the first film. This film suffers... yes SUFFERS... from "Lord of the Rings" syndrome. Ever since Peter Jackson made The Lord of the Rings trilogy (which was brilliant) and Hollywood found out that big epic films with sprawling landscapes and enormous battle scenes will make bank at the box office they have been obsessed with recreating the success of LOTR. The problem of this is while this concept works well with LOTR, it doesn't necessarily work well on EVERY fantasy film. Maybe if more time was put into story development in this film, and less time into crazy special effects and overwhelming battle sequences we might have a film worth seeing. Seriously, how many times are we going to see a battle of millions of little computer generated sprites with catapults before it gets old. Its already old for me.

These things are just a taste of the flaws of this film, the list could go on. I only give this movie a 2 star rating because, although it is terrible, it is watchable (Although I would not advise you to do so).

If you are looking for a well thought out and enjoyable fantasy film that you can keep coming back to... trust me... look elsewhere.

December 07, 2008.

Excellent Family Movie.

Rating: 5
Excellent family movie for children 10+. Good talking points around biblical analogies - an understanding of C.S. Lewis books is a tremendous benefit in understanding the biblical relationship.

December 04, 2008.

things Never Happen The Same Twice.

Rating: 5
Disney has unleashed another fantastic chapter from the Chronicles of Narnia.

Now "Prince Caspian", does not follow the book of the same name as loyally as the first did. Instead we dig in much deeper into the depression of Narnia and get a few spectacular battle scenes. This film is a lot darker and less magical than the first, it is however so much more meaningful.

Clearly this movie breaks out from the clean cut "the Lion, With & the Wardrobe". It crosses territory only "Lord of The Rings" had before and it proves to be an excellent effort. As a sequel it's good but on a stand-alone its classic.

This is a must own. Any other negative review only deals with the fact that it's not page-by-page from the book and that it's not as magical as the first ... but really like Aslan said "Things Never Happen The Same Twice" and chances are most of the generic public never read Prince Caspian (which btw is not one of the most popular books and also lacks any real action).

This blu-ray edition is fantastic. By Far one of the best blu-ray's to ever come out, the PQ is excellent and the audio comes uncompressed with a powerful and never dull 7.1 mix.