The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian: Critic Reviews

A fierce and somber battle epic.

Child kings and queens land in a Jacobean tragedy with The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian.

It's entertaining, value-for-money stuff.

Though the movie could have ended a few scenes earlier, it is still a journey well worth taking.

Prince Caspian, like its predecessor, delivers sweeping, swashbuckling action in a handsome production, albeit one that leaves viewers feeling quite pummeled by the end of its nearly 2 1/2 -hour running time.

A muscular fantasy epic that marks a filmmaking improvement if not a leap in dramatic inspiration over 2005's The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Caspian reveals this series as conceived ever more clearly as a junior-league Lord of the Rings.

Sure, it's a big-budget spectacle. But it's also the kind of grandly old-fashioned entertainment we don't get enough of anymore.

I wish I could be more enthusiastic about Prince Caspian, an honorable and attractive adventure for children and families. But scenic beauty and spirited action can't conceal its dramatic defects.

The struggles remain, but [director] Adamson has tweaked the plot, rejiggered the character dynamics and piled on the epic warfare. By the end I had overdosed on surly Peter, pouty Caspian and over-digitized shock-and-awe.

Another triumph for director Adamson. He had us at Narnia but took us farther on this eloquent journey than we expected to go.

Like the finest fantasy epics, The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian invites us into a rich realm and, at two-plus hours, holds us there for a goodly spell.

At every turn, the filmmakers go for clutter and tumult where simplicity would do -- and Adamson, to put it kindly, isn't the fleetest of action directors.

With bigger battles and scarier monsters than its predecessor, the new movie flaunts grander visual effects, and, with one notable exception, a dash more individuality than the initial installment.

I realize the first film (The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe) made almost $745 million worldwide. Well, some things make tremendous profits simply by showing up and getting the trains to run on time.

Prince Caspian is an elaborately presented feast that will taste familiar to the 'tween and teen audience for whom it is served.

Bigger, brasher, more magical and funnier than the first.

If there's one thing The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian accomplishes, it's this: It makes you realize just how good those Lord of the Rings movies were.

The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian offers kids and adults an entertaining escape into the world of C.S. Lewis' books.

A bit darker, more conventional and more crisply made than its 2005 predecessor.

Another classic saga of deeds dastardly and swashes buckled, The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian doesn't quite equal the first film, but some may find this one a less-insistent piece of pure entertainment because it isn't so overtly Christian.

If you ever wondered what The Lord of the Rings would have been like had Disney made it on the cheap, tossing the cast of Hannah Montana into Middle Earth, here it is. Caspian is two hours and 20 minutes of 'Whatever'.

Something human is missing here, amidst all the centaurs and talking bears and mobile trees. It's the art of storytelling, which knows when to allow characters time for heartfelt interaction, when to build suspense, when to mount a climax.

Why oh why are these sequels always bigger and louder and longer and bad?

Andrew Adamson's The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian is a much more elaborate, ambitious picture than the 2005 The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and it adds up to far less.

They may make for clunky religious parables, but the Narnia books -- and so far, the movies based on them -- are wonderful as stories about childhood and its loss.