Day 213 - 8/1/09 - Movie #209
BEFORE: I have news of a devastating loss - Time Warner Cable here in New York has replaced their "Passport" DVR software with something called "Mystro" - and as a result I've lost the ability to search for movies by an actor or director's name. This will make it tougher to track down those last two Hitchcock films, and my planned Clint Eastwood festival will now have to be scaled back. However, I now have access to more Movies On Demand channels, at $1.99 each (take that, $5.99 DVD store!) so I've been buying and recording like a madman, keeping my list of movies to watch hovering above 400 - thus ensuring that this project will continue, at least until the end of 2010.
The "Narnia" series of books was one of my favorites when I was a kid - I can remember when "Prince Caspian" was considered the 5th book in the series, not the 2nd - and I didn't realize at the time that it was sort of a "gateway drug" to harder fare like "The Lord of the Rings"! I watched the first movie last year, so now finally I'm following up.
THE PLOT: The Pevensie siblings return to Narnia, where they are enlisted to once again help ward off an evil king and restore the rightful heir to the land's throne, Prince Caspian.
AFTER: Since I didn't recall most of the exact details from the book (it's been a long time...) I can't rate the movie's faithfulness to the source material - but it was certainly action-packed, and just like in "Golden Compass", the best scenes were the fight scenes and the talking animals. Liam Neeson once again voices the lion Aslan, Peter Dinklage and Warwick Davis co-star as dwarves, and Eddie Izzard voices a sword-fighting mouse.
Much has been written over the years about the Christian symbolism in the Narnia books, and I can sort of see that here - the kingdom of Narnia is endangered by the apparent loss of its lion/god - what sort of god remains absent and watches from afar, as people fight and struggle and suffer?
RATING: 8 out of 10 centaurs
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