| Author |
 Topic  |
|
|
rockfsh 
"Laugh, Love, Cheer"
|
 Posted - 05/26/2008 : 06:46:39
|
For Whipper:
Supporting character's a badger.
|
Edited by - rockfsh on 05/26/2008 16:29:28 |
|
|
Demisemicenturian 
"Four ever European"
|
Posted - 07/04/2008 : 09:26:38
|
The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian
I was rather disappointed. I had got the impression that it was a significant improvement on the first one, and I'm not really sure that's true. A lot of moments are painfully twee, the fantasy characters are unappealing, the baddies are bizarrely Spanish and the whole thing is extremely ponderous -- it could easily have been an hour shorter without any real loss of content. |
 |
|
|
BaftaBaby 
"Always entranced by cinema."
|
Posted - 07/04/2008 : 10:28:37
|
I totally agree with Sal. Except for a few moments of sheer cinematic brilliance - see below - the thing plods like a ploddy thing plodding through plodville. How kids are meant to be engaged by the convolutions of boring exposition is beyond me. There were so many derivative and borrowed bits that the title could be changed to 2nd Hand Rose. No connection between the kids who ranged from inoffensive to smug with a teabreak of incompetent. Even the wonderful Peter Dinklage was reduced [no pun intended] to banal mugging. And we won't even talk about the moral message which is shoved up your ass like a rectal probe. It's dire.
Except
There's a sequence in the Big Battle - one of the few that isn't telegraphed ahead - that is spectacularly surprising and involves a lot of attacking calvalry being ambushed in an amazing way. Sadly, it's for effect only, and consequences are never pursued.
And
Most wonderfully is a sequence involving The Water God which is a fine tribute to technology and a popular car advert.
Feels like NZ director Andrew Adamson, Shrek graduate, is making a very expensive show-reel so he can make lotsa cash directing commercials - which may be where he learned his you-should-excuse-the-expressions craft.
Here are some lovely alternatives for children on a school-break:
The Natural History museum
Round-robin story telling
Help mom bake some cookies
Take a walk in a bluebell wood
Go bird-watching
Go rock-pooling
Fold a piece of paper into horizontal strips - each person draws something on the paper strip. Open down for next person so no one sees the other drawings. Finally, open out the paper and get a communal drawing.
Bet you can think of lots of other stuff.
Perhaps even reading the book - which I certainly hope has more going for it than this joke of a film. 
|
|
|
|
Demisemicenturian
"Four ever European"
|
Posted - 07/04/2008 : 12:34:28
|
I read all the books as a child and in all honesty cannot remember much about this one, whereas I can remember bits from The Magician's Nephew, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, A (The?) Horse and His Boy, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader and The Last Battle. So the source material may be part of the problem -- I reread The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe some years ago and it is certainly quite flimsy compared to what we are used to in children's fantasy nowadays. However, that should have made it easy to make a normal-length film.
To be fair, I should say that the (two!) children in my screening did not seem to have been bored, and as far as I could tell it wasn't just that they were glad to be leaving.
Yep, the river scene is good, and I didn't find myself thinking the typical "Well, this is just C.G.I., so so what?" And elements of the battles were fine, though I did find myself tuning out and then coming back and thinking "Is this the same battle or a different one?" |
|
|
|
demonic
"Cinemaniac"
|
Posted - 07/16/2008 : 02:08:24
|
I liked it a whole lot more than I expected to. Much more than the first one which really felt like LOTR-lite, combined with hideous child acting. The kids aren't that much better in this one delivering dialogue in clunking soundbites; the dullard playing Peter the worst offender. Lucy is still quite good; definitely the most natural performer of the four, but too young to be expected to hold their scenes together. The film as a whole felt more substantial though; convincingly epic, actually better paced (even though it is too long) very beautifully shot (New Zealand looking impossibly fantastical again) and definitely more thrilling. The night raid on the castle was particularly excellent I thought, as well as a wonderfully menacing section featuring the White Witch. It was very dark on the whole; even (unfunny) light relief mouse (Eddie Izzard - strange choice) was stabbing Spaniards in the face and slitting throats from start to finish, albeit bloodlessly. I fully expected to hate Ben Barnes as Caspian, as yet another pretty boy plucked from the English stage with no charisma, but I was convinced, accent and all. I suppose he only had the non-fantastic four to compete with though.
Last thing to say: badger's rule. |
|
|
| |
Topic |
|
|
|
The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (Spoiler)
