Abhominable

All right -- I was always going to be hard to please when it came to the Narnia movies.

I have read those books dozens of times -- over and over as a child, twice through the series so far with my own children. When I am sad or sick or lonely I will sometimes pick up one of my favorites and read a few chapters for comfort. I think I love them more as an adult than I did as a child.

So I knew from the outset that I wasn't going to love the movie version of Prince Caspian. But I am aghast at how bad the adaptation is. Dreadful. Abhominable, not forgetting the H, as High King Peter advised Doctor Cornelius. So bad that I took notes on my ticket receipt about all the things I disliked, the better to enumerate them later. This made my husband and sons laugh out loud afterward, but how could I let placenta brain interfere with my blogging? I'm sure you understand. Spoilers follow, if you're planning to see the movie and don't want to know the details.

Hollywood does goodness badly. This was my chief criticism of the Lord of the Rings movies -- the books show islands of goodness in a darkening world, but they are utterly unpersuasive in the movies. (Exhibit A: Galadriel. Ugh.) So it's unsurprising, but also unfortunate, that Aslan on the screen just doesn't compare to Aslan on the page. He's MIA for most of the movie, more a mascot than a beloved leader. The pivotal middle-of-the-night scene, where the children and Trumpkin follow first and see later, is mutilated. I have often thought about that scene, about how sometimes you have to walk up to the cliff's edge before you see safe footing and a beloved Face ahead, but apparently eternal truth was not the screenwriters' cup of tea. Lucy has what seems to be a dream about Aslan. That's it. They all get up the next morning and watch Peter act like an idiot.

Ugh! Peter! Blest posted about the Peter problem when the first movie came out and he is even worse this time around. His first encounter with Caspian? Swordfighting. They continue sparring, disagreeing about the best course of action, until Peter insists on attacking Miraz in his castle by night at tremendous risk to the Narnian forces. Contrast this with their first encounter in the book:

"Your Majesty is very welcome," said Caspian.
"And so is your Majesty," said Peter. "I haven't come to take your place, you know, but to put you into it."

In the book, Peter immediately offers to challenge Miraz to single combat specifically to avoid taxing the outnumbered Narnian army. In the movie, Peter's angsty desire to be treated like an adult trumps his willingness to act like one. He starts a ridiculous fistfight in the train station at the beginning of the movie, and we don't really see matters improve from there. One of the loveliest things about Narnia is the way it draws out the best from the people who visit. That particular brand of magic is written right out of this movie.

While Peter's ability to lead is diminished, Susan's is hugely augmented. She fights with gusto, leading the archers in the battle against the Telmarine troops. But the books' Susan hates war, displaying a reluctance to fight that prefigures her defeat in the ultimate battle. Susan also behaves badly in England, lying to a boy who asks her name. It is a small detail but it matters nonetheless: I remember being struck as a kid by the importance of duty, of honor, for the characters in the books. A Pevensie would never lie.

Perhaps it's predictable, then, that the movie's Reepicheep is a shadow of himself. In the books the tiny Reepicheep looms large as a reminder that even the smallest of us can have immense dignity and valor. In the movie he mugs for laughs. It pains me to imagine what Dawn Treader will be like.

The most pernicious failure of the movie is its treatment of Aslan's enduring sacrifice. Aslan's How gets no special mention as a sacred place. Lucy sprawls on the Stone Table. (I wanted to get up and yank her off. I thought, "Maybe I'm overreacting because I'm Catholic and you'd never, for any reason at any time, sit on an altar." But I pulled out the book last night and it's not just me -- "They were not using the Table nor sitting round it: it was too magic a thing for any common use.") The White Witch returns, imprisoned in ice but far from vanquished. And Caspian, who in the novel deplores the very idea of summoning the White Witch, is merely intrigued when she appears in the movie. "You can guarantee this?" he wants to know when she promises him success. Repulsive. But not, I suppose, entirely unexpected.

In my view, the most widespread Hollywood heresy holds that evil isn't really evil -- it's actually alluring and kind of fun, as long as you know how to manage it. Goodness is for prim old ladies, and who wants to be a prim old lady? Somewhere Lewis wrote compellingly about how foreign true goodness is to us, how radical holiness seems like something out of this world. (Maybe it was The Problem of Pain? I don't have that one on the shelf to check but would welcome specifics if anyone has them handy.) The makers of this film seem to have remained ignorant of Lewis' views on good and evil, duty and faithfulness, and the resulting movie is hopelessly flawed. Don't waste your time.