Whereas the first installment ended on an action blowout, Prince Caspian has a considerably larger proportion of action music; Raid on the How (the what? No, the how. What? Never mind), The Duel (which drones on in the background rather than giving any sense of lively swordplay), The Armies Assemble and Battle Aslan's How (what? No, we've done that one. Why? Shut up). The latter two are full of typical durm and strang, but Gregson-Williams' aimless melodic content carried on low brass, seemingly endless MV style percussion, bouncing and/or racing strings, don't really move the music anywhere fast. Yes, it all sounds perfectly impressive enough and with a huge choir chanting its way through the background, it's nothing if not conceived on a grand scale. Yet, the minute it stops playing, it disappears from the mind. I was whistling The Adventures of Mutt after the first listen (and that's far from Williams' most original or memorable melody) but Prince Caspian is low on anything resembling memorable thematic material and is distinctly drama-lite. All of the epic flavour with none of the nutritional content.
Lighter moments are in short supply, indeed everything seems to have been taken just a bit too seriously. Cues that promise hope and spectacle, such as Return of the Lion, ring largely hollow, ultimately giving way to more routine action music. The Door in the Air is a nice finale although seems to just drift off at the end. The songs are actually quite pleasing bunch that are of a slightly more low key and folksy persuasion. Indeed, Hanne Hukkelberg's enchanting Lucy sounds like a lost Sigur Ros b-side (which is no bad thing). While it's perhaps unfair to make such a point in this review, scores like Prince Caspian are half the reason Soundtrack Express isn't what it once was. There's nothing terribly wrong with Gregson-Williams' writing, but one can't help but chuckle when director Andrew Adamson describes the themes from the first chapter as "beloved" - I doubt even a film music fan could pick them out of a lineup, let alone a casual cinema goer. When film music is this bland and uninspiring (especially given what should be such ripe subject matter and makes me feel like rather a shit for being a bit harsh on of Shore's Lord of the Rings scores in my summary of the complete editions) then it's hard to care either way. I'm sure Gregson-Williams will keep visiting Narnia, but I doubt - unlike in the case of the Raider's March, as a timely example - anyone will be whistling his Narnia themes round the office in 28 years.
Rating ~ 
Total Time ~ 75:02