Chronic - What? - les of Narnia: Prince Caspian

Stacy and I took the girls to see the latest installment in The Chronicles of Narnia franchise, Prince Caspian, last night. We should probably preview these movies before we take the kids to them, but getting out alone to do that is nearly impossible, unless we really go out alone, leaving the other to watch the kids. Stacy is actually going to do that to see Iron Man. I told her that I loved her enough to watch the kids while she went off to watch an awesome movie without me. Actually, I think my exact words were, "If it's a choice between seeing the movie alone or not seeing it at all, then go to Iron Man alone." It's that good.

Wait, this isn't another Iron Man review. Let's get back to the prince. The reason I mentioned previewing movies for the girls is the sheer amount of violence in this movie. Don't get me wrong, it's rated PG, but if you watch closely, you can see why. There's little to no blood, no actual evidence of wounds caused by blade or horn, only one on-screen death. They were very savvy in shooting and editing this film to retain the PG rating.

Did that make it a bad movie? NO! It was a great movie. It was just violent. Keep in mind this is coming from a guy that had no problem taking his girls to Speed Racer, a movie filled with ninja fights, cars with deadly weapons, and general race track viciousness. I think the fantasy violence is a little more visceral than the Speed Racer fare. It just stood out to me.

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe scribe/director, Andrew Adamson, returns to give us Prince Caspian. I didn't realize until looking him up that he also directed all three Shrek movies as well as penning the last two. With the consistent hand of someone familiar with the world of Narnia as well as six of the actors from the first, Adamson delivers his vision of the fantasy world exactly as before. The feel of Narnia and her denizens remained, which I think served the movie well.

In this tale, we are introduced to Prince Caspian, played by Ben Barnes. Caspian is the tenth in a long line of despotic rulers that invaded Narnia shortly after the Pevensies left at the end of the first story. Since time passes differently in Narnia, ten generations of these Telmarine invaders have lived and flourished in the space of one year for the Pevensie kids in the real world. Caspian's rule is threatened, however, by his power hungry uncle, Lord Miraz, played by Sergio Castellitto. Fleeing the castle on the night of the birth of Miraz's son, Caspian happens across true Narnians and in his fear summons the Kings and Queens of old, the Pevensies.

Here we are re-introduced to Peter (William Moseley), Susan(Anna Popplewell), Edmund(Skandar Keynes), and Lucy(Georgie Henley). In a move that would shock Hollywood executives all over California, the creators of Prince Caspian actually managed to get the actors back into recording while they still looked only a year older. I am the most disappointed in the Pevensies in this story than in any other in C.S. Lewis's series. I always thought the story of Prince Caspian showed us the Pevensies at their worst, but the movie really showcases their lack of nobility and grace that a lifetime as kings and queens in Narnia should have taught them. This is not a knock on the actors. They portray them exactly as they should be, I think.

The first thing we see of Peter is him brawling another schoolboy because he was treated like a child. We see Susan brush off a geeky boy by giving him a false name. We find later that Lucy, by postponing a very important task, may have caused much unnecessary harm. The only one that seems to have grown is Edmund, the worst of the lot from the first story. In this one, he comes to his brother's aid not once, but twice. He believes Lucy when no one else will, and generally shows more chivalry and wisdom than any of the others.

After being teleported back to Narnia, the children discover how long they have been away, first through some exploration on their own, and then through some exposition from my favorite Narnian dwarf, at least as of the viewing of this movie, Trumpkin. In the first stroke of genius casting in this movie, played by Peter Dinklage. For those of you too lazy to click on the link, he's the small actor du jour now. He's where Warwick Davis was about a decade ago in his career. Speaking of which, Mr. Davis plays the evil dwarf, Nikabrik. Interesting casting for Davis. I've not seen him play anything more threatening as a Nelwin before. He's good, but he's no Dinklage.

Trumpkin re-introduces the Pevensies to the world of Narnia as it is now. Eventually they meet up with Caspian and the meat of the story really begins. Through a clashes of steel and wills, the Pevensies, Caspian, Miraz, the Narnians, and the Telmarines struggle for control of Narnia. Where's my favorite character through all of this? Where's Aslan? No where to be found, unfortunately. Aslan doesn't make his true appearance until rather late in the movie. When he does though, it's pretty kickass. Voiced again by Liam Neeson, he as impressive and imposing as Aslan should be.

The only other character I feel worth noting is one that has been another of my favorites from the books, thankfully voiced by a favorite actor/comedian of mine, Reepicheep the mouse. Eddie Izzard brings him to life in Prince Caspian. While he serves as a worthy comic foil, he has an appeal of his own, I think.

All four Pevensie actors play their parts well. I was especially impressed with their stunt work. I am sad that we will not get to see Moseley and Popplewell reprise their roles again, as the next Narnia story features the younger two Pevensies and a new boy in Voyage of the Dawn Treader. I hope we will see a return of Keynes, Henley, Neeson, Izzard, Dinklage, and Barnes, preferably directed by Adamson.

I give The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian 15 out of 17 DLFs on a scale that I just made up that doesn't mean anything.

Bachelors, Ex-Girlfriends, and Pirates. Oh my!

Week two of my forced bachelorhood is nearing its end. Stacy’s flight back starts Monday night, but ends Tuesday morning. So what have I accomplished with all of my free time? Nothing. Nothing productive, at least. I did get in some quality video game time, catch up on a bunch of recorded TV, hang out with my brother-in-law, and watch a bunch of movies. Doing the laundry and mowing half a lawn in the last week and a half is as productive as I have been. I’ll be getting to the rest of the lawn on Monday. Record temperatures kept me from doing lawn work this last week, that and my inherent laziness. It was all I could do most days hauling my butt out of bed before noon. Meh.

Jon and I went to My Super Ex-Girlfriend this week with my brother-in-law, Ryan. I have to admit that it was a lot better than I thought it would be. I was expecting a few laughs here and there, but I was not prepared to laugh as much and as hard as I did. Jon and Ryan seemed to enjoy it too. There was even a good dig at Utah in there. Being pretty self-deprecating anyway, I can take a good joke at the expense of the physical capital of the LDS religion. Utah does suck by many standards. Uma Thurman plays the psychotic ex-girlfriend a little too well, which added to the fun of the movie. Just imagine anything a crazy ex-girlfriend might do and then multiply that by a hundred. Hilarity ensued. Luke Wilson, the tolerable Wilson brother, played a decent straight man. I was a bit disappointed in his lack of adventurous spirit, though. Even with my fear of heights, I think even I would have enjoyed the triple F (free fall [expletive deleted].) Ah well, his attitude was more of a plot device than anything, so I can’t fault him too much. I was pleasantly surprised when Eddie Izzard made his entrance. I hadn’t done any research on the movie and didn’t know he was in it. I enjoy seeing Eddie in anything. If you haven’t seen it already, find a copy of Eddie Izzard: Dress to Kill. You will thank me or I will mock your sense of humor mercilessly. (I see at Amazon that Eddie has some more work that I need to check out.) Anna Faris was just kinda there. She didn’t add much to the experience. I can’t take her seriously after seeing her in Scary Movie and its many sequels. The show stealer was definitely Rainn Wilson of The Office fame. Far from his love-to-hate character of Dwight, he played Luke’s lecherous friend. His sage nuggets of man-wisdom were interrupted only by his chauvinistic pick-up attempts. Should you go see this? Definitely. It is one of those rare films that is fun to go see it with the guys or on a date with your better half. Just hope the latter doesn’t get any ideas for what to do to you if you dump her (or him, whatever.)

I went to see Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest with Ryan and a coworker of his last night. It was just as good the second time around. We went to the Manassas Cinemas to see it, which besides being only a couple of blocks away from home, is the only movie café nearby. I dig ordering dinner while watching a movie on the big screen. I recently spoke with Jamie about this movie and she, as she is wont to do, waxed crazy. “We didn’t like it. There weren’t enough fight scenes.” Awuh? Lessee, I counted four fight scenes, one of which was the most fantastic feat of fight choreography I have ever seen. For those sad few of you that haven’t see the movie, let me just ask you to imagine a three-way sword fight taking place on top of and inside a runaway mill water wheel. Sound cool? It is. That is not including the two (or three, depending how you count them) fantastic scenes battling the [spoiler deleted]! The surprise ending was a stroke of genius. Not only did it end the movie with a marvelous flourish, it made me really excited for the trilogy finale. Then there is the fact that it’s about pirates, and there’s nothing better than pirates.

And, since you can’t top pirates, I think I’ll draw this entry to a close.