Chronicles of Narnia, The: Prince Caspian (DVD)

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But the landscape and set design this time around is more dramatic and Middle Kingdom-like, rather than the Peaceable Kingdom idyllic setting of the first film. As a result, it doesn't seem quite as magical. What's astounding, though, is to see in one of the main bonus features how Adamson and his crew used original illustrations from the books and tried to match them. What you think is CGI is often a real setting, and there's plenty of behind-the-scenes footage to prove it. Like the Sandman in "Spider-Man," the river god that's summoned at one point looks wonderful in 1080p, with all the mythic charm of the old Ray Harryhausen creatures brought into the 21st century with astounding clarity and texture. So while something is lost in the second installment, something is also gained, and "Prince Caspian" is a solid entry in the series. Parents probably ought to know that while the film earned a PG rating for "epic battle action and violence," and while we don't really see blades make contact all that often (there's usually a quick cut-away or blur), there are numerous implied killings and at least one implied beheading.

Video:
Though the DVD doesn't have the "wow" factor of the Blu-ray, it's still a very good picture. There are times when the level of detail even approaches 1080p, so for a DVD release the video presentation is strong. If I didn't have the Blu-ray to compare it to, I'd say that except for some scenes where the flesh tones look a little orange (and hey, that could be Narnian light) the colors seem true and vivid, the contrast is good, and the level of detail is quite good for standard definition. Though the literature doesn't indicate as much, this was obviously mastered in Hi-Def. Compared to the Blu-ray there's a little more grain in this, the edges aren't as crisp, and the colors don't seem as true, but for a DVD this one scores high marks. "Prince Caspian" is presented in 2.40:1 aspect ratio, "enhanced" for 16x9 televisions.

Audio:
The soundtrack is also quite good for a standard def release. The English, French, or Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround seems vibrant and channeled so that all six speakers are engaged in a natural way. This is a sound effects and ambient noise film, and the rear speakers get plenty of activity. The soundtrack is also free of hiss or other distortion, which we've come to expect from Disney. One thing about the House of Mouse: when they do things, they generally do it well.

Extras:
On DVD, "Prince Caspian" is available in either a single or triple-disc version. The three-disc package includes one disc that's for digital copying.

Disc One features a commentary track from director Adamson and the young stars who play the Pevensie siblings and Prince Caspian. It's clear that Adamson allows his actors plenty of freedom to express themselves, because the young actors interject with all sorts of remarks. There's a lively give-and-take, lots of laughs, some overlapping dialogue that's sometimes tough to decipher, but plenty of behind-the-scenes insights and anecdotes. It's a fun commentary track, in other words, with Adamson's wry humor a constant throughout (as when he deadpans at the outset, "Any good family movie should start with a birthing scene").

Disc two features a three minute-blooper reel if you're into such things, a five-minute short on how long it takes Peter Dinklage to become Trumpkin (with a little yak hair added here and there), a seven-minute "Secrets of the Duel" that explains the choreography for the key battle, a five-minute snippet on animating the animals and trees, a 10-minute pre-visualization extra, an 11-minute short on how Warwick Davis becomes the dwarf Nikabrik, and 11 minutes (10, in all) of deleted scenes that aren't missed. These are fine little featurettes, but teasers, really, because of their length.

More substantial is the longest feature, "Inside Narnia: The Adventure Returns" (34 min.), which is most astounding because of all the footage not just of behind-the-scenes filming but of down time that the actors all had to go through. It's here where we get the basic story behind the movie, and how reluctant at first Adamson was to do the sequel. It deteriorates, though, into a bit of a tribute to the director near the end. In "Sets of Narnia: A Classic Comes to Life" (23 min.) we get the full story on Lewis and see pages from the original book compared to natural settings that Adamson and his crew actually found to match. Readings from the text are juxtaposed against narratives about how the filmmakers tried to recapture as faithfully as possible all of the settings that Lewis described. It's possibly my favorite of the bunch. About the same length is "Big Movie Comes to a Small Town," which feels like an extension of the previous feature because it's about a specific location--the town of Bovec, Slovenia, on the River Soca. On this small town over 1000 cast and crew descended, and since there weren't enough places for them to stay, many stayed with families in private homes. It's a great feature on the impact that a film can have on a community.

Bottom Line:
Adamson and his crew cranked it up a notch when it came to CGI and set construction, even building a castle from scratch. But because the focus in "Prince Caspian" is on politics and the reclaiming of a kingdom, with inevitable battles driving much of the action, it doesn't have the same charm or magic as "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe." It's still solid family entertainment, though, and just as Lewis's books were better received by children, this film series is certainly more kid-friendly than the Peter Jackson versions of Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings" trilogy.