A lot has changed since we last visited Narnia in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Although it has only been a year in the real world, 1300 years have passed since Peter (William Moseley), Susan (Anna Popplewell), Edmund (Skandar Keynes), and Lucy (Georgie Henley) stepped back into the wardrobe, leaving the magical world behind. Aslan seems to have deserted Narnia, and instead of being a bright world of fantastical creatures, where fauns and centaurs mix freely with humans and talking animals, The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian brings us to a darker, more brooding and scarier place, where greed, ambition, betrayal, and even murder seem to lurk in all corners. Instead of a magical White Witch, the bad guys in this, the second installment of the Walt Disney and Walden Media series, are humans with common human emotions, which makes their evil seem even more menacing.

While this dark vision of Narnia may appear more frightening than the first movie, it also makes the film seem less like a simple children’s tale of light versus dark and more like a grown-up tale with a full spectrum of good and evil, and all the shades of gray in between. Although the film has its share of cute talking animals and magical creatures, the focus of the film is more on the relationships between the human characters and their inner growth, thus making it more accessible to a larger audience.

The story opens with young Prince Caspian, handsomely played by Ben Barnes, being awakened by his faithful tutor and told to flee for his life. Caspian’s evil uncle Miraz, who ruled Narnia with an iron fist since the death of Caspian’s father, has just been presented with a son and heir to the kingdom. Miraz is played by Italian actor, Sergio Castellitto, who embodies such an air of menace about him, that William Mosely said that he had to step back a few times during shooting because he was actually frightened.

The tutor gives Caspian a magical horn, which belonged to Queen Susan. The horn is to be used only in times of dire need, for it will summon help from ages long past. When Caspian seems in imminent danger, he blows the horn, thus summoning the return of the kings and queens of old.

It is this dark world that the four “sons and daughters of Adam” are whisked back into to help save the day and bring order and light back to Narnia. It won’t be an easy task, since Peter, Edmund, Susan, and Lucy are dealing with a few changes of their own. For Peter and Susan especially, the change from being royalty and heroes in a magical kingdom to being regular kids dealing with normal childhood issues like school, homework, bullies and boyfriends, was not an easy one.

This aspect of life after Narnia that the children had to deal with was not in the book, but was added by the screenwriters to illustrate some of the inner struggles of the characters, thus making their transformation back to being kings and queens in Narnia a more palpable one.

The film also has more action (but no blood) than both the first film and the book. Not only are there big battle scenes and brave acts of heroism, we get to see Susan the Gentle transform into a warrior queen – a change which the director, Andrew Adamson, noted as being necessary to give the story a more modern appeal than with C.S. Lewis’s old-fashioned notion of a woman’s place in the world. There is also a climactic sword fight between Peter and Miraz, which is artfully shot, making the audience feel as if we are in the midst of the fight.

This film has its share of new characters who we will see more of in future installments. Ben Barnes ably plays Caspian, the youth who will be king, yet doubts his ability to do so. Peter Dinklage plays the dwarf, Trumpkin, who is the voice of doubt in a world that has been without Aslan for so long and who also provides a bit of comic relief to the dark film.

Eddie Izzard provides the voice for Reepicheep, also lending broader strokes of comedy to the film. While his performance is good, and his delivery exceptional, I have to admit a bit of personal disappointment (and my only complaint about the movie) in this noble mouse character. I always imagined Reepicheep to be more like a swashbuckling Errol Flynn type, but he comes off more like Puss-in-Boots from Shrek, which was also directed by Andrew Adamson.

One aspect of this movie that I loved, and a true testament to the director, writers, and producers, is the fact that the allegorical themes of the original Chronicles of Narnia books are still there and very much intact despite the changes made to the story in order to turn it into a film. Prince Caspian still explores issues of growing up, reliance on self, loss of faith, doubt, discrimination, and trust, and does it all without ever preaching to the audience.

While some of the battle scenes might be too intense for the youngest viewers, it is the values and lessons learned in this film that make it a must see for children and for adults. It is a highly enjoyable, engaging film and I am looking forward to future installments.