The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian

The second installment in the Narnia adventures. I liked the first one but wasn't a huge fan, liked it much more the second time I saw it on dvd. That said, I liked this new one better than the first. While true, there isn't a lot of character development, it kind of assumes you know all the set up from the first one, it still is very entertaining and has a lot of heart to it. I have to disagree with Mandy about the religious aspects being down played, I thought they were very prevalent and very well done, the ending, while a bit abrupt was particularly emotional. I will agree however on the soundtrack, very powerful. There is quite a bit of fighting and battle scenes and I'm a little surprised it didn't earn a PG-13 rating because of it, although there's not blood and guts, most of it is hidden from the camera. All of the actors do a great job and I found the four kids to be much more believable this time around, especially in battle scenes. The special fx are truly top notch. A movie of this scale and imagination simply could not have been done and done well without the technology we have today. Weta, Peter Jackson's fx company, continues to be tops in the business. Apparently this movie isn't doing quite as well at the box office as Disney had hoped, probably from being sandwiched in between Iron Man and Indiana Jones, but it's definitely worth a trip to the theater. Next up...Kung Fu Panda...

***1/2 out of 4