DVD: Prince Caspian

By: Eli Turner Posted: January 11, 2009

For the Christian-allegory-fantasy fan in all of us...

Here I go again starting a review off with how little I know about a subject (these reviews are really starting to make me doubt my general knowledge, but I'll be damned if I'm going to read the entire Wikipedia article on the Bible just for one review!): I don't know a whole lot about the bible. I have a passing knowledge, but I spent most Sundays as a child asking my dad to locate the exciting stories in the bible so I could read them. That didn't leave a whole lot of attention left to be paid to the pastor, but it did mean that I know the story of Samson and David & Goliath really well, but I know little else besides what everyone knows about Jesus and walking on wine, et cetera, et cetera.

So when I see Chronicles of Narnia, I don't really see the connection story-wise. I get that Jesus is Aslan, but the connections to the bible seemed very vague in the first one, and only slightly more apparent in this installment. Sure, Aslan sacrificed himself for the kids, only to be resurrected, but he was resurrected, like, thirty seconds after he died. Jesus was dead for a full three-day weekend. Oh, I forgot to mention for anyone that doesn't know, Chronicles of Narnia is a Christian book series, it's just disguised as a mediocre fantasy series. If you didn't already know that, I hope you're either foreign-born or was secularly home-schooled under a rock. Or maybe you're just dumb.

So the tenets of Christian faith are more prevalent and apparent in Prince Caspian, but the story doesn't ring a bell as far as Christian stories go. So either C.S. Lewis really wanted to write a genuine action-fantasy series, or he just spent his Sundays re-reading the exciting parts of the bible over and over. I won't be surprised if the next movie (I'm not going to read the books, I have far better fares to peruse) features some previously unknown character being eaten by a whale or something of that sort.

I was quite surprised by the film's PG rating. There was an incredible amount of violence in this film. The first movie featured almost exclusively animals and mythical beasts being crushed, stabbed, shot, eviscerated, or otherwise bloodlessly maimed, but Prince Caspian had most of the animal characters survive while the humans were slaughtered by old-fashioned medieval weaponry. How a film like this escapes with a PG rating is beyond me. It would be like a porn film that doesn't show anything being rated PG-13. It's still a freaking porno. And just because little Braveheart cuts a guy's head off and Reese's Pieces go flying everywhere doesn't counteract the fact that a human being's just been beheaded (this does not actually occur, by the way, I'm just emphasizing my point. That would have been AWESOME, though).

The Narnia movies are long and slow, but this one isn't quite as long and it has more action in it, so if you liked the first one, or only despised it for your abject boredom, maybe give Prince Caspian a shot. If you hated the first one because you hate Christians or Lions or maybe wardrobes(?), you might as well just steer clear and keep holding your breath until the next installment of your satan-worshipping Heather Potter comes out next summer. Until then, the Samson story begins with Judges 13.

Special Features:

Disc One:

• Commentary with director Andrew Adamson and cast members

Disc Two & Three:

• Deleted Scenes
• Featurettes
• Blooper reel
• Interactive Games
• Digital Copy of the film