The Film
Book two of seven, The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian takes a dark turn from the previous adventure, 2005's The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, much like another famous fantasy second act, The Empire Strikes Back. Near-extinction has befallen the peaceful, magical kingdom of Narnia since their rulers, the Pevensie children, have returned to their normal lives in the real world, England during the second World War. But they are abruptly summoned back to Narnia to serve as its defenders once again, this time against a rival kingdom where power has corrupted its royal family, leaving the good Prince Caspian, rightful heir to the throne of Telmar, to flee for his life.
Unlikely alliances are forged and betrayed, more mythical creatures are introduced and vast battles are fought. It really is grand storytelling, although a certain spark from the last movie feels like it's missing here. There is a lot of journeying particularly in the first hour, during which not much happens to move the story forward. But soon enough, there's as much spectacle as we can handle.
Check out Joe Lozito's take on Prince Caspian.
The Picture
In keeping with the dramatic tone, much of the film is visually quite dark, be it at night or underground or otherwise shrouded in shadows. Thanks goodness the blacks here are up to the challenge, deep throughout and surrendering detail as needed. In both Narnia movies, so much time and money but also sheer heartfelt creativity has been expended to create this world, down to the last accessory on the last costume, and every bit of it reproduces wonderfully in high-definition.
The beautiful scenery is rendered not just with magnificent colors but striking precision, down to individual blades of grass and grains of sand. The cutting-edge special effects held up wonderfully on the big screen and are no less impressive in the home theater. The brief emergence of the water god especially is a vision to behold. There's a fair amount of film grain on display in the 2.40:1 frame, and some faint digital artifacting, but never so much as to spoil the fun.
The Sound
The DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 is as bold as Caspian himself. The designers have made outstanding use of the multiple high-resolution channels, filling them with whizzing arrows, the whoosh of a cloak, the clank of mighty swords, galloping hooves and more, some of them so realistic, I almost felt as if I was truly hearing movie swords, arrows et. al. for the first time. Dialogue is always clear despite an assortment of accents. Sonic emphasis has been put of Harry Gregson-Williams' musical score, and both the instruments and the voices of the chorus benefit from the remarkable fidelity, providing greater immediacy. Low-frequency effects, while never conspicuous, are well utilized as part of this superb mix.
The Extras
Exclusive to Blu-ray is "Circle-Vision Interactive: Creating the Castle Raid." Using one of the production's actual 360-degree photographs of the custom-built set as a backdrop, we can pan around and click on a variety of hotspots to access different media, including film clips with narration, behind-the-scenes snippets, trivia text, and slide shows which show how several of the key moments in this elaborate sequence were created. This is one of the more complex supplements I've seen yet, and it is extremely well-produced.
Also here on Disc One is support for Disney's online BD-Live initiative, for additional features on BD Profile 2.0-compliant players. The audio commentary by director Andrew Adamson and actors Georgie Henley (Lucy Pevensie), Skandar Keynes (Edmund), William Moseley (Peter), Anna Popplewell (Susan) and Ben Barnes (Prince Caspian) is a special treat: Seldom does the entire cast of major characters reunite in the recording booth, and this is a testament to their devotion. All are polite, intelligent, and very much at ease, with few stretches of silence.
Disc Two serves up bloopers, ten deleted scenes (none of which feature final-quality special effects, naturally) and a series of featurettes, some shorter than others. "Inside Narnia: The Adventure Returns" is the broadest, covering the many challenges faced in making this bigger followup. "Secrets of the Duel" dissects the pivotal, surprisingly brutal one-on-one battle at the top of Act Three. There are also bits about the impact on the Slovenian village where part of the movie was shot, the computer-animated storyboard process, the mythical denizens of Narnia, and separate profiles of actors Peter Dinklage and Warwick Davis, who portray Trumpkin and Nikabrik. Through it all, we gain a sense of how much this project means to all of the participants. All the above bonus content is presented in high-definition. While poking around the menus, I also found a handful of fun little Easter eggs.
The third disc is a DVD containing "DisneyFile" Digital Copies of the movie: One for iTunes/iPod, another in Windows Media Video format for the PC, and another smaller WMV file for portable devices like the Creative Zen X-Fi.
Final Thoughts
Prince Caspian might occasionally stumble and lose his way over the course of his quest, but the epic scale is breathtaking, a fine fit for this well-adorned showoff Blu-ray.
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