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health; Prince Caspian
May. 19th, 2008 03:44 pmHealth update: Back in February, I slipped on an icy sidewalk, and injured my wrist. Since then, it’s continued to hurt, and I’ve seen two doctors: the first thought that it might be a hairline fracture; the second thought it might be a torn ligament. Doctor #3, after an examination, said that it was probably tendonitis; he gave me an injection of cortisone, and now my wrist feels better than it has in months. Well played, doctor #3 :) (And, after a weekend of generally feeling run down, I feel better than I have in weeks. Interesting stuff, cortisone.)
Part of the problem with Prince Caspian is that it wants to be The Lord of the Rings; I counted half-a-dozen specific visual references to Jackson’s work in this film, and probably missed a few. Also, whereas The Lion, the Witch was a nearly prefect fantasy experience, centering nicely around Edmund and his treachery, the director Andrew Adamson doesn’t find the emotional center of this film quite as readily. There are attempts to do so: Peter’s character, in particular, is pressed to be much angrier and more rebellious than he is in the book (he’s given a rivalry with Caspian here, which leads to a few good dramatic scenes, but proves largely distracting).
Beyond that, the cast generally do well with what they’re given: the kids are all good; Ben Barnes does a nice job with his accent; Warwick Davis is nicely sinister as Nikabrik, and Peter Dinklage has an engagingly hangdog look as Trumpkin (he has a bit too much cutesy dialogue along the lines of “Who are Telmarines? Where have you been for the last few hundred years?”, although the film avoids the ridicule of dwarves which marred the Jackson films). Beyond that, however, the film tends to emphasize spectacle at the expense of character (there are several battle scenes, not all of which appear in the book; while some- particularly Peter’s fight with Miraz- have a nice sense of physicality, the films once again starts aping Jackson’s visual style in the larger-scale combat scenes- as with the trebuchets, for instance.) It’s hardly a disgrace, but people expecting a reprise of the near-perfect experience of the first film are likely to be disappointed.
Part of the problem with Prince Caspian is that it wants to be The Lord of the Rings; I counted half-a-dozen specific visual references to Jackson’s work in this film, and probably missed a few. Also, whereas The Lion, the Witch was a nearly prefect fantasy experience, centering nicely around Edmund and his treachery, the director Andrew Adamson doesn’t find the emotional center of this film quite as readily. There are attempts to do so: Peter’s character, in particular, is pressed to be much angrier and more rebellious than he is in the book (he’s given a rivalry with Caspian here, which leads to a few good dramatic scenes, but proves largely distracting).
Beyond that, the cast generally do well with what they’re given: the kids are all good; Ben Barnes does a nice job with his accent; Warwick Davis is nicely sinister as Nikabrik, and Peter Dinklage has an engagingly hangdog look as Trumpkin (he has a bit too much cutesy dialogue along the lines of “Who are Telmarines? Where have you been for the last few hundred years?”, although the film avoids the ridicule of dwarves which marred the Jackson films). Beyond that, however, the film tends to emphasize spectacle at the expense of character (there are several battle scenes, not all of which appear in the book; while some- particularly Peter’s fight with Miraz- have a nice sense of physicality, the films once again starts aping Jackson’s visual style in the larger-scale combat scenes- as with the trebuchets, for instance.) It’s hardly a disgrace, but people expecting a reprise of the near-perfect experience of the first film are likely to be disappointed.
