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The return in Prince Caspian of the White Witch, the character Swinton also portrayed in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, lasts all of three minutes, but its inclusion speaks to Andrew Adamson's shrewdness as returning director. Swinton was a perfect fit for the White Witch, with features as pure as the driven snow, and a mask of kindness barely draped over her lust for power. The image of Swinton as the White Witch trapped magically behind a block of ice, beckoning with an outstretched hand towards Prince Caspian, softly imploring him for just a single drop of his blood to allow her back into the physical world, carries the film a lot farther along than perhaps it deserves.

Without speaking to Prince Caspian's fidelity to the C.S. Lewis novel, as a film it suffers from sequel-itis in both familiar and not-so-familiar ways. Financially speaking, on the domestic front, it performed in the manner of how sequels were once expected to behave. If they could capture 50% or more of the gross of the predecessor, they were deemed a success. Mega budgets and the ever-burgeoning global economy (many Hollywood productions now derive, on average, 60 to 66 percent of the total gross from overseas, as opposed to 34 to 40 percent domestically) have now produced the baseline expectation that sequels need to match or exceed their forebear, in terms of final gross. With overseas revenues accounting for so much, the domestic tally only tells a small portion of the tale.

By any measure, Prince Caspian's final numbers of $141 million domestic and $278 million foreign ($419 million total) are a bracing corrective from the $291 million/$453 million ($745 million total) figures of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. This is especially confounding in light of BOP's oft-expressed (and very rational theory) of how a really good installment in a series buys a line of credit and credibility for the next one, whether it's part two, a sequel to a reboot, or what have you. By all accounts, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was critically well-received and beloved by audiences, so why the disdain for further adventures of the Pevensie clan? Multiple theories abound as to the reasons why, with two key ones being the stature of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe over other volumes in the Narnia series and the more overtly Christian elements and themes of the predecessor leading to - on these shores at least - church groups and congregations buying large blocks of tickets en masse (a family-friendly The Passion of the Christ, if you will.)

Prince Caspian is most definitely Biblical, but more in line with the Old Testament's an eye-for-an-eye style of thinking. In the nearly two and a half hour running time, a good three-fifths of the film is given over to preparations for battle, battle, and the aftermath of battle (all very exciting) and familial treachery as an uncle seeks to murder his orphaned nephew and ascend to the throne (not as exciting.) The PG rating for "Epic Battle Action and Violence" is both spot-on and laughably understated and seems to have filtered down from the MPAA's awarding of PG-13 ratings to films that are all kinds of R in terms of tone and content.

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