The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian: B

There's a fascinating bit of symmetrical history running behind-the-scenes of The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, the likes of which twists lips with its light-fingered and fitting irony. And it is this: sixty years ago, C.S. Lewis was many things - scholar, converted Christian, dabbler in science-fiction - but definitely not a children's author. And then came his Narnia series. By a similar turn, writer-director Andrew Adamson was considered several things before the winter of 2005 - a visual effects supervisor of the mid-to-late '90s, an anarchic force behind the galvnizingly riotous Shrek and its slightly-less-sparkly sequel Shrek 2, and even (in a rare case) a songwriter - but he was most definitely not the sort to undertake the task of adapting Lewis' worthily treasured adventure series that was really an allegory cloaked in twinkling myth. Yet just as the public must have done in the fall of the '40s, so too must we: acquiesce to the notion that not only could one man turn the story of Christ into a cherished bedtime story, but so too could another man turn that same tale into a perfectly adequate and satisfying film.

The story goes like this: siblings Peter (William Moseley), Susan (Anna Poppelwell), Edmund (Skander Keynes), and Lucy (Georgie Henley) have been back in England about a year since their adventures in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe when one puff on a magic horn (the air for said puff having been supplied by our titular prince, played in a pouty rustling smolder by Ben Barnes, on the run) sends them right back into the land of Narnia. Except it seems that their one year on accidental hiatus has been 1,300 to their once-kingdom. And in their absence, a substitute royal hierarchy has taken their place - aptly given a menacing label, the Telmarines - and in the absence of the children's light and generosity of spirit, a savagery and oppression has cropped up. The magical inhabitants of Narnia (the talking creatures, the dwarves) have been forced into hidden exile under threat of extinction and the heir to the Telmarine throne, Prince Caspian, has been forced to join them - under threat of murder in his sleep by that scheming and bearded uncle of his (Sergio Castellitto). It seems this time, the tyrant isn't the White Witch, but a mere mortal...and a loss of faith?

The goal seems obvious to any reader: dipose the wrongful king with the oppressed forrest critters. And, rightly, does Peter agree with that sentiment. But Lucy keeps insisting that Aslan (Liam Neeson) is hanging about, though the Narnians insist he abandoned their world when the child-kings did. So the ensuing first 100-minutes are a subtle struggle between Peter and his brother and sisters over exactly what course to take, and when, and with whom to guide them. It's all religous allegory of course, and it played better as prose. But if anything, Adamson is more skilled here than he was in Wardrobe at keeping things shuffling along. There's less quaintness about the creatures, and more clang, bang, BOOM. And the story, seemingly slight as it sometimes seems, is surprisingly robust in hindsight (robust enough, anyway, to fill more than two hours).

Adamson, for all the possibility presented him by his own talents as a gleeful satirist, restrains himself admirably by letting just a few twinges of moderninity slip through. The majority of them that do though, aren't very well pulled off (the Susan-Caspian romance is worse still: it's obvious). Except for one: it happens in the final sequence, a (spoiler!) surprise goodbye party for the Pevensie children as they solemnly trudge back to that dreary place called England. Right before they go it's (unsubtlely) let slip that of the four, only Lucy and Edmund can return. Now, I haven't read Narnia books in a while, but I'm pretty sure this little plot turn was written with more finesse by Lewis. No matter, because as all the pieces start to fall into place for the coming franchise of films a lilting Regina Spektor song fills the screen. The melody has all the quiet but scarily-appropriate 21st-century flair the director so rarely pulled off with Caspian.

Not like the movie needs much flair, anyway. It is modeled after a narrative cooked up decades in the past, after all (though as a consequence the dialogue can seem very much like it was uncomfortably plucked from the '50s). But the cast (which includes, in one breathless cameo, Tilda Swinton), of which Moseley is the brooding standout, makes it mostly work. And the overarching film has all the wonder and entertaining expediancy of any good fantasy blockbuster. Lord of the Rings it ain't, but at its best it is an abashedly stodgy family epic that pleases and moralizes in a more than solid ratio. At its worst, that ratio tips the other way and the continual battles and righteous character exchanges in Caspian lose their quaint sparkle and become a crusade.