The follow-up to The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, or as we could call it, The Lion, the Witch, No Wardrobe, maintains the medium-high standard of its forerunner, higher, that is, than the standards of such close-by epic cycles as the Lord of the Rings series and the Harry Potter series. The narrative elements seem somehow to have more heft, more harmony, more resonance, and the individual installments demonstrably stand more solidly on their own. The four Pevensie siblings, otherwise known as “the Kings and Queens of Old,” herein return to the parallel universe of Narnia, not through the portal of a magic clothes closet but from an ordinary London subway platform (call it The Lion, the Witch, and the Tube, if you choose), but while it’s still WWII-time in England, a “few hundred” years have passed in Narnia. A paradigmatic deliverance myth is now in progress, encompassing an exiled heir to the throne, an oppressive regime of swarthy Mediterranean types called Telmarines, and a gathering rebel army numbering among its ranks a grumpy dwarf, a swashbuckling mouse and a Toryish old badger (both bigger than life), an air force of griffons, some centaurs, some minotaurs, one of whom merits a special medal of valor propping open a falling grate for an escape route as his body gets pierced by enemy arrows. If the film overall is a bit battle-heavy, and a bit long, and a bit slowed by immoderate slow-motion, the climactic battle nevertheless features some galvanizing and agonizing changes in momentum, an imaginative stratagem of a subterranean cavalry charge, and the majestic intervention of a swelling water deity, bringing matters to a decisive resolution. Ben Barnes, William Moseley, Anna Popplewell, Skandar Keynes, Georgie Henley, Peter Dinklage; directed by Andrew Adamson. (2008) — Duncan Shepherd
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