Forget Reepicheep, the swashbuckling mouse: if anyone put in a valiant effort during The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, it was me. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe (2005), director Andrew Adamson's first attempt at bringing Narnia to the big screen, was good fun. Many of the elements that worked in the first movie are present in Prince Caspian and there’s more than enough novelty in the sequel to justify its existence (which is more than can be said for many sequels), so I’ve been puzzling over why enjoyment eluded me despite my best effort. We can’t keep blaming Peter Jackson for setting the benchmark so high that all fantasy movies these days are left floundering in the wake of his Lord of the Rings trilogy. No, in the end, blame lies with Adamson's movie itself, and with C.S. Lewis’ novel.

The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe ends with the return of Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy to England after many years ruling Narnia. As adults they step through the wardrobe only to find themselves children once more: time flows differently in Narnia and only moments have passed in England. One year later they are called back to Narnia and discover that 1300 years have passed in their absence. Everything has changed and for the worst. A race of humans called the Telmarines has colonised the land and ruthlessly banished the Narnia of old to the borders of memory where it is little more than the stuff of myth and legend. Young Prince Caspian is rightful heir to the Telmarine throne but his Uncle Miraz has other plans and with the birth of a son, Caspian is an obstacle to be removed. Caspian flees, discovers that the mythological Narnians do exist and are in need of a leader to help them reclaim their place in the world. As the enemy of their enemy (and a Son of Adam too - any human will do when it comes to talking beasts) Caspian might just be the one. But they are no match for Miraz and in a moment of desperation Caspian sounds Queen Susan’s magic horn, calling the four Kings and Queens of old back to the land and together they rise up against the Telmarine oppressors.

In a nutshell that is the entire plot of Prince Caspian. What is remarkable about laying it out like that is that it doesn’t contain a single spoiler you wouldn’t have got from watching a trailer of the movie. There's simply not much to it. Unlike his friend and fellow fantasist J.R.R. Tolkien (who disliked allegory immensely) C.S. Lewis had no problems using fantasy in an allegorical way, and described the theme of Prince Caspian as “the restoration of the true religion after a corruption” (Collected Letters, III, p.1245). Whether you agree with Lewis’ religious agenda or not, there’s no denying that this other dimension provides an otherwise simple story with some real substance. One way to present this theme is to “observe” the characters as they struggle with faith in Aslan, the Lion deity. In the novel Lewis does take the time to justify (from a literary perspective, not a theological one) the struggle and loss of faith of many Narnians, as well as the four children, due to Aslan’s absence from Narnia for so long and at a time when His people need Him. And in the novel it is possible to empathise with such a loss of faith, especially with the children's.

Adamson’s movie on the other hand won’t allow us to engage emotionally with the children. In The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe we shared their wonder on arrival in Narnia, and although in Prince Caspian there was an opportunity for us to share their shock at 1300 years of changes, the opportunity wasn’t taken. But far worse, no real effort goes into justifying the children’s struggle with faith. I can understand why some Narnians might have lost faith in the big old Jesus-Lion: Aslan appears to have buggered off at about the same time he sent the four Kings and Queens home to England, depriving Narnians of leadership for 1300 years.

It's precisely this sort of thing that makes Lewis' fantasy unsatisfying: the narrative is made to serve an allegorical religious agenda. Loss of faith in a god who leaves His people in the lurch for 1300 years for no good reason other than to test their faith and then save the day just to prove a point? Fair enough, if you ask me (how unreasonable is Aslan when he berates Trumpkin for being faithless!).

As for the Pevensies, they've been absent for all of one year, and have been magically returned to Narnia where they have years of personal experience with the big fluffy deity: what possible reason for doubt could they have? Without taking the time to justify their loss of faith over time, under duress and with no hope of Aslan’s return, their loss of faith has no plausibility whatsoever. And it’s not as if Adamson was hard up for time! Prince Caspian’s 140 minutes of running time is instead given over to a painstaking recreation of what is, as we’ve seen, a very simple plot, plumped up with three overblown battle sequences.

Is it any wonder that Adamson fails to instil his vision with any real substance?

Almost as much an issue is the contrast between the human world of the Telmarines and the fairy tale world of Narnia. The Witch in The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe was more powerful and more obviously evil than Miraz, but her threat was a fairy tale threat: she was an obvious evil that must be opposed and which in the end could never be a match for a bunch of talking animals and plucky English school kids. The world of the Telmarines is darker and more complex and I think this is at the root of why Adamson’s movie and Lewis’ novel are less satisfying than others in the series. The world of men is one in which political power dominates, not magic; it is more subtle and complex and, well, adult: murder, usurpation of the throne, political courtly intrigue, these are the realities of the new Narnia and the contrast with the world of talking animals and plucky English school children is almost too great to believe.

Which gets us to the three extended battle scenes. These go through all the motions but have all been done better elsewhere (although I did like the Ninja Fauns in the Castle battle scenes!). The effects are generally impressive (although some are awful) but we’ve seen it all before and they don’t raise these scenes above an emotionally void mundanity. Once again the problem is a contrast between an adult and child world view, although this time it was the Studio’s desire to keep a PG rating. Battle, in Prince Caspian, is glorious but while we see lots of death there’s no blood or reality to any of it. There’s no sense of danger and anyone even remotely important is miraculously healed anyway, so there’s no suspense or fear for the children or their friends either. In trying to have it both ways – lots of battle action without scaring the kiddies – something is lost along the way, at least for an adult audience.

And anyway, we know the bloody lion is just biding His time and will turn up at the appropriate moment to save the day. Just as soon as the children rediscover their faith. Ho hum.

I’m with Professor Tolkien on this one: I really don’t like Allegory.