The Chronicles of Narnia Prince Caspian Blu-ray Review

The Chronicles of Narnia Prince Caspian

Blu-ray Review
Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment
Released: December 2, 2008

The original Chronicles of Narnia was a huge hit at the box office, big enough for Disney to do a sequel.  The films, based on the C.S. Lewis classic The Chronicles of Narnia, have a huge following and are truly fantastic from top to bottom.

The second film in the franchise brings us back to Narnia, and needless to say everything is much bigger.

The sets are huge, the scenery will have your jaw dropping to the floor, and some of the CGI special effects are really well done.  The only place where the film really fell apart for me though was with the fact that it seemed a lot like the original in many spots.

The basic plot elements of the original Narnia film are back once again here in the sequel, with a few things being changed up here and there.   The basis of the film is that Narnia is in trouble, and is virtually in ruins.  The entire film focuses around the conflict in Narnia, which is being threatened by the Telmarines.

All of the same characters return from the original as the lion Aslan is back, Lucy Pevensie (Georgie Henley) returns, as does Pevensies Peter (William Moseley), Susan (Anna Popplewell) and others.

The characters do a great job in the second film, carrying on with their characters and evolving the whole story even more than the original.

There is plenty of good here in Prince Caspian, with some solid story development, character development, etc.  The only downside to this one for me was that it just seemed too much like the original.

The video quality of this Blu-ray release is quite impressive as it is presented in 1080p AVC 2.40:1 aspect ratio.

This is reference quality Blu-ray material to say the least as the level of detail here, with the colors, solid black levels, and everything else that goes along with it will blow you away.  This is as close to perfection as you will get on Blu-ray.

The same can be said about the audio mix which is equally as impressive as it is presented in a DTS HD 7.1 mix.  The audio mix is engrossing as it uses each of the channels extremely well, with good dialogue, clear sound effects, etc.

Getting into the extras, Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment did a great job with this release of putting in a lot of content on the Blu-ray release for extras.

The first disc is kicked off with a nice commentary track with the director and actors.  There is another a track known as Circle-Vision Interactive, which packs tons of featurettes and other little tidbits.  Honestly the amount of content packed into this is extremely impressive.

Going beyond that, the second disc has the majority of the extras.  This starts out with many featurettes such as the making-of documentary called Inside Narnia: The Adventure Returns.

On top of that, there are also other featurettes such as Sets of Narnia, Big Movies Comes to a Small Town, Previsualizing Narnia, Talking Animals and Walking Trees, Secrets of a Duel, and more.

All of these extras cover every conceivable aspect of how the film was put together and do a great job of showing fans how it was all put together.

Rounding out the extras is a BD-Live feature, deleted scenes, a blooper reel, as well as a digital download of the film on a third disc!

Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment did a great job with the Blu-ray release of Narnia: Prince Caspian as it has a great transfer, as well as plentiful extras.  The only downside is the movie itself which does not match up to the magic of the original.  Still for fans of Narnia, this is a must-buy!

Film: 7.5 Not as good as the original but still plenty of quality entertainment to be had!

Video: 10 As good as you are going to get, reference-quality!

Audio: 10 Same thing I said as above, just repeated.

Extras: 8.5 There are tons of extras here, the digital copy is a nice addition as well!

Final Score: 8.5

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