Entertainment, Movies - Navy Times

Fantastically fresh

Veteran octoplex dwellers know it’s usually not wise to hold high hopes for sequels, particularly the high-profile franchise sequels that rain down during the May-October “summer season.”

The problem with sequels is that it’s difficult to escape the “been there, done that” malaise. It’s simply not possible to get the same fresh, new thrill from a sequel as from the original.

But “The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian,” the follow-up to 2005’s ridiculously successful ($745 million worldwide box office) “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe,” comes about as close as possible.

How? Simple: In a fictional universe governed by its own laws of time and space, you can reshape and rearrange your ingredients to a degree that makes everything seem almost new.

And so it is that one year after their initial adventure, the Pevensie kids — Peter (William Moseley), Edmund (Skandar Keynes), Susan (Anna Popplewell) and Lucy (Georgie Henley) — are magically transported from their home in World War II-era London back to Narnia ... where 1,300 years have passed since they left.

The kids, who became kings and queens in this realm after vanquishing the White Witch (Tilda Swinton) in the original film, find that Narnia has fallen on dark times.

The trees no longer dance, Aslan the mighty lion (voiced by Liam Neeson) has been MIA for about a millennium, and the minotaurs, centaurs, dwarves, trolls and talking forest critters have been forced into deep exile by the Telmarines, a race of conventional-looking humans with vaguely Mediterranean accents led by the volatile King Miraz (Sergio Castellitto).

The Pevensie kids have been called back to Narnia by Miraz’s nephew, Prince Caspian (Ben Barnes), the heir to the Narnian throne, who is fleeing for his life because his uncle wants to ensure that his own newborn son inherits the crown.

The two-hour, 15-minute film — directed by Andrew Adamson, who also directed the first “Narnia” film and co-wrote the original and the sequel with Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely — takes its sweet time setting things up, to the point that young viewers may begin to squirm.

But the exposition is necessary to set the stage, with Caspian (referred to in one scene as the “son of Adam” — get it?) and the Pevensie kids forging an alliance with the dwarf Trumpkin (Peter Dinklage), the centaur leader Glenstorm (Cornell John), the warrior mouse Reepacheep (Eddie Izzard) and all the other Narnians to take out Miraz and restore freedom to the land.

Once the battle lines are drawn and the Narnians get set to throw down with Miraz and his Telmarine army in the film’s final hour, the action heats up in a hurry and stays hot to the end, to include the requisite return of Aslan, of course, as well as the near-return of the White Witch.

Parents should be aware that the clash — which plays out in two large set-piece scenes, one at Miraz’s castle and the other on an open plain — are quite violent for a PG film, although if you never show any actual blood, I guess you can sneak your film in under the wire these days on that score.

As actors, the kids are pretty stiff (although Popplewell gives Susan a sly heroine’s edge), and even Barnes is on the dull side. In fact, Dinklage’s Trumpkin fares best, getting the choice one-liners and stealing some scenes.

Then again, the acting is not the reason to see these films; it’s about dropping yourself into a world brimming with dazzling fantasy, where the idea of a chatty, erudite badger waxing philosophical in a British accent seems completely normal.

It remains to be seen whether the magic can be maintained across what will surely be more sequels (author C.S. Lewis wrote seven “Narnia” books).

But for the moment, “Prince Caspian” proves to be a big, bold, captivating flick that even nonfantasy-film geeks can like.