If you love the Narnia books as much as I do, you might not appreciate Disney’s movie version of Prince Caspian. It resembles the book somewhat, but its biggest flaw is not capturing the real theme of the book or its mood. I found it to be mostly an action movie in which the story is there to fill in the gaps between the fight scenes. And there are lots of fight scenes.
As movies go, it is a very good movie. If you don’t care that it doesn’t actually convey the same ideas as the book, then you will probably enjoy it very much. I was so excited in some parts that I actually had a physical sensation of exhileration. The music is superb, and it carries you along as though you are right there with the characters instead of watching them as a spectator.
At times I could not figure out why certain characters did what they did. There was no internal logical consistency, I thought. In addition, the characters just do their own thing and don’t work together much or discuss their problems to determine cooperative solutions, which definitely departs from the story Lewis wrote. Instead of working out their problems, the characters spend a lot of time glaring at each other or simply staring. They also spend a lot of time sulking and brooding.
Very few of the conflicts are actually resolved. People are just killed, and then things are set right. The book has lots of subplots involving important conflicts that all end up getting resolved somehow.
If you want great entertainment, watch the movie. If you want enlightnment, read the book.
Wikipedia Article with Links to Reviews
6 responses so far ↓
Mike Lovell // May 19, 2008 at 10:09 am |
Books have always been better than the movies. Perhaps Stephen King movies are a little better because he haggles with the flim editors to keep more stuff in than taken out, in an attempt to keep the movie versions truer to the original works, but those aside, I rarely find a movie that comes anything close to the books they are based on. If you know of any, please, let me know!
Jay Burns // May 19, 2008 at 10:55 am |
“If you don’t care that it doesn’t actually convey the same ideas as the book, then you will probably enjoy it very much. ”
I don’t. I did. Most likely because I haven’t read the books.
languagelover // May 19, 2008 at 11:59 am |
Mike, I actually enjoyed the movie Big Fish more than I did the book. They are similar, but the movie seems to have more meaning, to me.
My children went to see Prince Caspian with my sister and they all really enjoyed it. I hope to see it and, though I’ve read the books, I try to enjoy movies for themselves, and not for the comparison…it doesn’t always work, though. For example, I enjoyed I am Legend, but the book’s ending was so much better…
Godfather // May 19, 2008 at 1:40 pm |
Thanks for the review! I am still looking forward to seeing it.
Godfather (theslowbleed.com)
amyletinsky // May 19, 2008 at 5:10 pm |
Some great things to say about the film. I especially liked this point: “In addition, the characters just do their own thing and don’t work together much or discuss their problems to determine cooperative solutions, which definitely departs from the story Lewis wrote. Instead of working out their problems, the characters spend a lot of time glaring at each other or simply staring. They also spend a lot of time sulking and brooding.”
In my own review, which you commented on http://amyletinsky.wordpress.com/2008/05/16/seeing-christ-in-caspian ,/ I think my goal here was to go against the general flow of the reviews from the Christian world which are overwhelmingly negative and focused on the differences between the book and the movie. There are ways that we can see Christ in the movie, sure not as many as in the book, but I’m rejoicing in the fact that Christ is there at all. Maybe I’m just a bit more cynical about what to expect from hollywood. I set my expectations lower, and when there’s anything positive with a Christian perspective, I like to point it out, instead of tearing the entire enterprise as a whole down. But, I can also understand why people who make their living doing reviews for places like Christianity today would want to do the tearing down thing. I just don’t agree that it’s the most constructive way to handle it for speaking to the world we live in.
Stel Pavlou // May 19, 2008 at 11:22 pm |
Very good insight. I agree with your take on the story problems and the choppy editing. There was some very inconsistent logic. But I felt those problems existed in the first movie too, so I kind of bought into that aspect for the second one. I thought the message was still there, but my guess is if it had been any stronger it would have made the film feel unbalanced.
As for the limp-wrist… A peck of pickled peppers ought to do the trick. Though I could be completely wrong.
RG: Thanks for stopping by and for reading my blog.