Narnia 2 - 2/5 Stars

[Saintg]

Oh sweet sweet Narnia... why must you be made by Disney? In their sophomore release of the Narnia franchise, Andrew Adamson and Disney continued to make the same mistakes, in my opinion anyway, as they did in the first run. Note, when making a movie with a huge budget to squander in cgi driven battle scenes, actually show the battle. The movie is jam packed with battle sequences in which you get to see up to the swords clash, then the camera twitches and you get some off screen, soft-core gasp of some red shirt assumable getting slain. Obviously, being that I'm a 20-something male with no children, I always expect Lord of the Ring style slashings... my acceptance level doesn't seem to drop when movies are made considering children and their imaginative minds... Especially when the movie was made from stories of my childhood book reading. I'm reminded of Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean, and don't remember the high seas action flick yielding from appeasing the adult's thirst for bloodshed, so what makes this different? Maybe its the hope for a church draw due to the CS.Lewis "religious undertones." I'm not certain.
None-the-less... The movie doesn't sit well with me. Poor choices of where to spend cgi monies (i.m.o.) and a return of 4 child actors (5 if you include Caspian) that neither inspire or seemingly know how to act... all resulted in an enjoyable movie going experience. Not resting on the shoulders of the movie mind you, but rather the pre-movie Turkish delight the Alamo Drafthouse was passing out, and the mid-movie pizza and beer delivered to my seat. Score, theatre 1, movie 0.

PS: If you enjoyed the first Narnia movie, you'll likely enjoy this. If not, you may want to drop the kids/wife/girlfriend off, and sneak into the Iron Man showing next door:)