CinemaNow - The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian

Virtually all reviewers compare Prince Caspian with the earlier Narnia movie. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. A.O. Scott in the New York Times calls the newer film "more satisfying" than the first. He warns parents: "Its violent (though gore-free) combat scenes and high body count may rattle very young viewers, but older children are likely to be drawn into the thick political intrigue." Claudia Puig in USA Today remarks, "Fans of the first Narnia surely will enjoy this sequel, which is better made and more of an epic." Comments Elizabeth Weitzman in the New York Daily News: "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." Bob Strauss in the Los Angeles Daily News comments unenthusiastically, "Little of it may be exceptional, but much of it goes beyond the usual PG standard in thoughtfulness and craftsmanship as well as carnage." Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune insists that the new film "is roughly the same as the first in terms of quality and style. It delivers without much visual dynamism, and with a determined emphasis on combat." Kyle Smith writes in the New York Post that 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." Other reviewers are not so generous. Rick Groen of the Toronto Globe and Mail, who regarded the first Narnia as a "near perfect adaptation" of the C.S. Lewis novel, wails his disappointment over the sequel. "Why, oh why, are these sequels always bigger and louder and longer and bad?" he asks. And Mick LaSalle in the San Francisco Chronicle minces no words, concluding tersely that the film is "one of this year's biggest disappointments."