A WAR FLICK WITH HONOR

By MICHAEL WARD
New York Post

May 12, 2008 -- HOLLYWOOD seems to have concluded that war movies don't sell. But "Prince Caspian" seems likely to prove the opposite.

"Caspian," the new Narnia film from Walden Media based on the CS Lewis classic, is expected to do quite well. The secret: It's not anti-war.

Flicks like "Stop-Loss," "Lions for Lambs," "In the Valley of Elah" and "Rendition" have bombed because they're painfully anti-war - and the heavy-handed ideology makes for artistic as well as commercial failure.

"Caspian" is a fantasy, of course - but also a war story. Indeed, it's the tale of a just war: Prince Caspian's fight to return Narnia to its natural, Aslan-given order by driving the tyrant Miraz from power and bringing back and restoring the rights of talking animals, fauns, dwarves and other magical beings.

The tale is full of military events, councils, knights. Aslan gives a great war cry to summon and inspire his troops ("The Lion Roars"). Miraz is defeated in single combat, after which "full battle" is joined.

In fact, "Caspian" is centered on the theme of Mars, god of war.

Lewis wrote the Narnia Chronicles so that they would express the qualities of the seven heavens of the medieval cosmos, which he deemed "spiritual symbols of permanent value." "Caspian" was his Mars book.

But he was seeking to acquaint his readers with the true, higher nature of Mars - Mars "baptized" and brought within the Christian tradition of gallantry: strength put in the service of life and growth. (Thus, "Caspian" also celebrates the pleasures of peace, represented by the green, living, Narnian woodland. Trees are key to this story and are another aspect of Mars - "Mars Silvanus," the god of woods and forests.)

Lewis fought in World War I and knew the horrors of conflict. He was certainly no warmonger. But he also thought that there was such a thing as a just war - indeed, he once addressed a pacifist society in Oxford on the topic "Why I Am Not a Pacifist."

War was terrible, he believed - but not so terrible as letting tyrants run rampant. Conflict could be a necessary way of preserving or regaining peace.

"Caspian" is not a "we're all guilty" hand-wringing exercise. But nor is it a gung-ho, Rambo-like, slash-and-burn story.

A real warrior is brave but self-restrained, Lewis believed. The noble and heroic knight frees us from a world "divided between wolves who do not understand, and sheep who cannot defend, the things which make life desirable."

"Caspian" is likely to be a hit whatever Walden does. But if the film conveys "the necessity of chivalry" (Lewis' words), then it may actually deserve to be a hit.

Michael Ward is the author of "Planet Narnia: The Seven Heavens in the Imagination of C.S. Lewis" (planetnarnia.com).