Any fan familiar with the literary versions of the Chronicles of Narnia can tell you that the books are practically screenplays already.
A number of challenges face a writer trying to adapt a novel to a screenplay. One of the biggest comes from the fact that novels are generally longer and contain more detail than a typical screenplay. Screenwriters usually have to remove enough that the movie can fit into the 90-180 minute length without sacrificing so much detail that the overall story suffers. They usually do this by condensing or rearranging events. Pacing can also represent a problem. A novelist can get away with whatever placement of events makes sense to tell the story - even when that means long stretches of very little action or excitement, but a screenwriter will find him/herself putting an audience to sleep if the interesting bits, be they action or discovery, don't continue to come at a steady pace.
Understanding how difficult it can be to balance these things, I can usually forgive screenwriters taking certain liberties with a beloved story. I don't usually like it much, but I can reason why they did what they did.
With the Chronicles of Narnia, however, they'll get no such understanding from me. The books are already proper length for a screenplay at give or take 200 pages. They're expertly paced and don't suffer from any plot stalling. There are no redundant details - there is exactly as much exposition and action that is needed to tell the story and not a drop more. So there should be no reason to condense or remove any details in the books.
Unfortunately the writers who penned the screenplay for Prince Caspian think a little too highly of themselves and made the lamentable decision to embellish the story in nonsensical and unnecessary ways. I could almost forgive this desecration if it wasn't for the fact that they removed bits of the original story to make room for their un-inspirational additions.
The writers felt it necessary to continue the character assassination of Peter that they began with the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe. In the first movie, they depicted Peter as a more modern boy who would run away from responsibility when the window broke. If you read the book, Peter clearly has a strong sense of responsibility and would face up to punishment, never running away.
In the Prince Caspian movie, Peter is portrayed as being a power-hungry slob that lets his anger rule him. Instead of focusing on Caspian's well-being and doing Aslan's will, Peter tries to (literally) fight Caspian for control of the Narnian army. And if that wasn't enough he leads the army on a foolhardy siege of the Telmarine castle that ends in defeat. The main point of the added siege sequence seems to be to make Peter realize what a bastard he's being so he'll give control back to Caspian. They could have more easily accomplished this by writing Peter as he was in the book where he wasn't a bastard to begin with, and practically tripped over himself to make sure he wasn't encroaching on Caspian's rightful rule.
Essentially the writers dumped the entire first chapter of the book in favor of adding a scene where Peter gets into a fight with several boys at the train station before they go back to Narnia, and the siege scene. They also felt it necessary to generate a romantic sub-plot between Susan and Caspian that promptly went absolutely nowhere and accomplished nothing but making purists like myself angry.
Moving away from my hatred of the embellishments and character assassination, the movie was quite enjoyable if one ignores the book it was based on.
Reepicheep is far and away my favorite character in the Prince Caspian story and the animators did an awesome job on him. I thought Eddie Izzard was an odd choice for him, but it fit better than I would have imagined.
Peter Dinklage went above and beyond with his portrayal of the cynical and fearsome Trumpkin. And I don't think I've ever seen Warwick Davis look quite so evil as when he played Nickabrick.
The animators, make-up artists, and actors did a great job of breathing life into the myriad fantasy creatures Lewis included in the stories, and the settings were beautiful.
I really hated Liam Neeson as a choice for Aslan's voice in The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, but somehow it wasn't as grating and out of place here.
I also appreciated the good degree of violence that played out - specifically that none of it was removed to appease the absurdly anti-violence mentality that so many modern organizations that purport to be in the interest of children insist on purveying.
The music and photography were particularly noteworthy. The framing always maintained interest without being overly awkward, or plain. The musical scores complimented the scenes they accompanied and never distracted.
The film was longer than I would have expected, owing chiefly to the lamentable additions to the story. It actually takes me less time to read the entire novel than the running time of this film.
I can only request, and hope that the writers don't screw with the Dawntreader in 2010 as badly as they did with Caspian.
