chronicles of narnia: prince caspian

i was rather disappointed by this one. i really loved the first narnia movie, but this one seemed to completely abandon all the fun and wonder of the first. instead of magic, we get the military. thats not the narnia i remember reading about as a boy! the story starts with the four children one year after the last time they go to narnia. they miss it and hope to return again soon. well, they get their wish but find that narnia has changed a lot in the year since they left. what was only one year in our world was a thousand years in narnia. their kingdom is gone and its thought that all the narnian creatures are extinct. a mean group of people have come and have taken over narnia. their soon-to-be king, prince caspian, is on the run from his evil uncle who wants the thrown. well, this brings the four kids back to help put things right again. the story is pretty straight forward and we get to meet a few new characters, but over all its not very good. what was so good in small doses in the first narnia film, the climactic battle, takes center stage here and overwhelms the whole movie so that it feels more like a military exercise than a fun children's film. aslan and the ice queen show up as well, but neither of them really play a part in the story. they are merely magical distractions from the sword play that seems to be the focus this time around. with all the fighting and declarations of bravery, we dont have any time at all for any character development or any reason to care about narnia a thousand years later.