Prince Caspian, from the Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis, opened this weekend in some 4000 movie theaters around the country. It had absolutely zero opening day competition and was riding the wave of The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe, which grossed upward of 745 million worldwide.Caspian ended up grossing 55 million in the opening weekend, a great opening for 99% of movies but a severe disappointment for those involved with the film. It was not near the disaster of Speed Racer, which will ultimately go down as one of the biggest flops in history. Still, it has to be disappointing to Disney and Walden Media, especially considering they are currently filming Voyage of the Dawn Treader and have the rights to the other 4 films after that.
While I enjoyed the film and thought is was an upgrade from the previous one, here are 7 reasons why I think Narnia did not perform well:
1. While the Narnia series are popular books, aside from The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, they do not have the same popularity as the LOTR or Harry Potter.
2. This movie didn't really know who its audience was. I took 15 junior high students to see it and they all thought it was "good" but that the action was lacking because it was so bloodless (there was high action but no blood or gore). Nonetheless, it was an intense movie and not one that I would not openly recommend for a 7 year old. The older kids thought it was too "PC" or "Churchy" while the little kids will get scared.
3. Ironman kicks major butt and I think everyone was so amped on that movie that a fantasy adventure to a magical place called Narnia was not really working. What looked like amazing timing on release date really didn't work.
4. Indiana Jones comes out next week. Many adults who still consider Indy as a mentor and father figure are thinking of no other movies but the Crystal Skull. I can't blame them. I wanted to cry at the previews.
5. The 4 kids in the movie, while decent actors, do not carry with them any emotional ties with the audience. Aragorn, Frodo, Legolas, Gimli, etc... were what made LOTR such a great ride. It wasn't the action as much as what will happen to everyone on the journey to Mordor. Narnia has failed to introduce a character that mesmerizes audiences. Note- I think Aslan fills this role, He is incredible but he has such limited screen time that you don't get a chance to connect with him.
6. C.S. Lewis is such a brilliant writer that it seems extremely difficult to bring his words to life on the screen. He is so poetic and implores such imagery that much of the magic of the books in lost on the big screen. Harry Potter, on the other hand, has made an easy transition to screen and I think is actually boring if you have read the books. Caspian, by the way, is one of the more exciting of the books in terms of action. I don't know how they are going to make The Silver Chair or The Magician's Nephew into a full length feature.
7. The Christian Coalition is still watching reruns of The Passion and failed to show up for this movie, or maybe they are saving money to secretly go watch Harry Potter. Sinners!
7 comments:
Great post! I haven't seen "Prince Caspian" yet, but I agree with pretty much everything you said here just going off my experience with the Lion, Witch and The Wardrobe movie. I felt like the actors were pretty lifeless and while I usually commend directors for choosing unknown actors for roles like this, I don't think it worked in their favor.
Bruecker-solid review. My significant other and I watched the old prince the other day and just couldn't get over how hot he was. Therefore my review would be very biased.
kidding. I think your right...the end
I saw it myself on Sunday and did not like it at all. So I'm going to add some more reasons to why it failed...
8. In addition to the bloodless and ultimately boring (ie, you never felt like anyone was actually in any danger) battle sequences, there was far, far too much of them in the first place. In a two hour movie there was 1.5 hours of battles. They spent so much time on the battles that I couldn't have cared less who died since I didn't know anything, much less cared about, anyone in the movie. And really, it's not that fun (read: believable) to watch an army of grown men get pushed around by 3 high schoolers and a little girl.
9. They (the makers of the movie) obviously realize people are going to compare these to LOTR, and other more "adult" books/movies, any they really need to stop. Narnia is not LOTR. They are different, and good in their own right. Caspian (the book) had like 10 pages of battle stuff, it's ridiculous to make that the entire center of the movie when it is of such little importance to the story over all.
10. The script was a poor adaptation. The book consists of 100 pages of flashback, and 20 pages of actual real time story. They focused entirely on those last 20 pages, and in order to have adequate screen time they inserted a crazy amount of battle sequences, a lame rivalry between Peter and Caspian, and a pointless side plot of Caspian being tempted by the dark side (for about 5 minutes when he never questioned it or was even aware of it in the first place). Not to mention they couldn't even write up a decent bad guy.
Bleh. I hope Dawn Treader is better... it certainly lends itself more to a movie than this one.
Jason...maybe when you blog you should focus on letting us know your opinion on things as opposed to just stating fact. You need to be more opinionated in general. I completely agree with the add-ons. Thanks for rounding out the top ten
Oh don't you worry, I'll let you know when I'm stating opinions. This was not that case however, all that stuff was pure fact. :)
still writing reviews?
genius.
so, what if we became a team of film critics and lived off of peanuts?
Sup. It's 2021. Goodbye.
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