Prince Caspian review

Overall, I think Prince Caspian was a huge improvement on The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe.  All the four main kids have grown into their roles much more, and Ben Barnes made a very attractive addition in the form of Prince Caspian himself.  Warwick Davis is always good value, and Eddie Izzard as Reepicheep was very amusing.

The first half, in particular, was very enjoyable, setting up the story and the characters for what can only be described as the carnage of the second half.  The second half was still good, but all I could think of was the Theoden quote from The Two Towers - "So...much...death..."

I think the thing that really bothered me was the lack of any kind of psychological impact of all the violence.  They carefully kept Lucy entirely out of the battles (but why should she be singled out just because she's a few years younger - the others are all under 18 anyway), but Susan in particular laid waste to enemey soldiers left, right and centre, without any qualms at all.  Is the idea that it's a fantasy world, so the people they kill somehow aren't real?  And why would the Telmarines cheer the entry of Caspian and the Narnians into the city at the end, when they've just killed a large portion of the adult male population?

I'm not going to get into the Christian aspects of the story, or debate the overall morality in any great detail - it's just that this was the last in a string of films I've been to see lately that have been incredibly violent, despite having a 12 or PG certificate.  Just because there's no actual blood or dismemberment on show doesn't mean swathes of people getting massacred isn't distressing.

Little Brother review

Dave gave me Little Brother by Cory Doctorow to read in order to indoctrinate me into his crazy paranoia about civil liberties and the government's invasion of our privacy.  And, boy, did it work!

It's a very scary book - it starts out trying way too hard to be "down with the yoof of today", but settles down quite quickly into an absorbing and exciting read.  Some of the techspeak went over my head, even when the narrator was trying to explain it as if to techno-ignorants, and I don't think I entirely agree with the protagonist's actions throughout, but the plot and characters were well-drawn, and I liked the fact that there were consequences to everything they did.

Recommended if you don't mind being scared witless by the possibility of men putting a bag over your head and dragging you off to a bottomless pit for the rest of forever.