Prince Caspian

I'll admit it. I'm a Narnia geek. First exposed to C.S. Lewis by my third grade teacher, Miss Ross, who read "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe" aloud to our class, I became immediately obsessed. I have read and re-read and read aloud to others all seven books. They are old friends, immediately recognizable even after the passage of time.

The first Narnia movie took some liberties, but I did appreciate the way certain magical moments occurred, and I loved the Talking Beasts.

I knew the second movie would be trouble when I saw the casting. Prince Caspian is supposed to be a little boy, not some hot dude looking Queen Susan up and down.

I was not a big fan of Liam Neeson as the voice of Aslan in the first movie, but I have concluded that no one would have satisfied my expectations, and he is fine.

After the movie, I asked The Princess to help me come up with five things we liked, to counter the many things we found objectionable (including the above and the crazy battle scenes that featured trebuchets moved through a forest that had no roads, Pure Luck asked me to point out), and here they are:

1) Reepicheep!!!!

2) Centaurs! Lots of them!

3) Trufflehunter!! (Are you catching a theme here? We loved the Narnian creatures.)

4) Lucy, whose character was not ruined, particularly in her scenes with Aslan.

5) Edmund, whose character was best preserved of all and very well-played, although in some cases in scenes having no relationship to the book what-so-the-heck-ever (and Pure Luck did not approve the Gandalf-escape homage).

Have you been to see it? Thoughts? Outrage? Delight? (Reepicheep!!!)