Battle Fatigue: A review of Prince Caspian

Posted on June 5, 2008 
Filed under Resources

Bruce EdwardsPrince Caspian is the perfect summer movie for audiences that know nothing about Narnia, or, even, perhaps would prefer to know nothing about Narnia. For in its 2 hours and 40 minutes, you will spend ample time in Peter Jackson’s Middle Earth, William Wallace’s Scotland, Harry Potter’s Hogwarts, and maybe even fleeting moments in Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights, but you will not spend more than 15 minutes in the world that Aslan made and that C. S. Lewis invented.

Is that a bad thing? Not if your goal is to erase the basic tenets of the Narniad, and re-envision the realm as primarily grim internecine warfare, a land, 1300 years since we last visited, surprisingly full of crossbows and catapults and other Vader-like war machines. There is evil in this world, but its roots are fundamentally different from Lewis’s version, for in his book, the problem with Narnia is suppressed knowledge, a spiritual amnesia, a people separated from its own nature, a true prince denied his throne. …

– Dr. Bruce L. Edwards, Professor of English at Bowling Green State University in Ohio thinks the new movie lacks something. Read his review.

Also see his next post, Forward to the Past: The Real Prince Caspian.