Before the Rains (PG-13) Two and a half stars
The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (PG) Three stars

So here’s the deal: I’ve seen Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, but members of the area press were shown the movie on the condition that no reviews appear until the film’s official release on Thursday, so I can’t tell you about it yet. Check  www.nuvo.net Thursday for my thoughts on the movie. I want to write about it in this space right now, but a promise is a promise, even if there are already 60 reviews posted at www.rottentomatoes.com, including Roger Ebert, the Chicago Tribune, TIME Magazine and Entertainment Weekly. And yes, I know, NUVO comes out on Wednesday and the film opens at 12:01 a.m. Thursday, but a promise is a promise.

Let me pause to take a few deep, cleansing, calming breaths.

Fine.

Today, I’m taking a look at two films, an epic that opened last weekend and a tale of the repercussions of betrayal that opens this Friday. The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, the second adaptation of C.S. Lewis’ revered series of books, returns the young actors from 2005’s The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe to Narnia, but even though it’s been a relatively short time for the four Pevensie siblings (William Moseley, Anna Popplewell, Skandar Keynes and Georgie Henley), 1,300 years have passed in the magical realm and everything is a mess.    

I gave the last film three stars, complaining that it took too long to get rolling and that it wasn’t as magical as it should have been. This one is even less magical, and there’s zero character development, but the action scenes are entertaining enough to earn it three stars as well. Narnia 2 is basically a war movie — nothing wrong with that, I just wish that it had more personality. The kids are one-note characters and Prince Caspian (Ben Barnes) is dull as dishwater. As for the exotic denizens of Narnia, they maintain grim expressions for most of the film as they tend to the serious goings-on. Appropriate, but where is the wonder?

Of the adult cast, Peter Dinklage is solid as Trumpkin, who serves as a gruff mentor to the youths, Liam Neeson sounds appropriately majestic as he provides the voice for Aslan the lion and Tilda Swinton is very effective in a brief appearance as the White Witch. The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian is a great-looking, well-staged war movie. Period.

Before the Rains wants to be a lush, visually arresting melodrama. The movie looks terrific, but the plot is too simplistic and the characters are nearly as one-note as the Narnia kids. The story is set in 1937 India, with Linus Roache — the new prosecutor on Law and Order — as Henry Moores, an English spice trader building a road to facilitate the transport of tea and spices. I was interested in the politics of it all, but Santosh Sivan’s film doesn’t explore that, focusing instead on what happens when Moores’ affair with his maid Sajani (Nandita Das) ends and trouble begins. The mood is right, the setting is properly exotic, but the screenplay is written in crayon, with every event telegraphed and hardly any character shading. I wanted to settle in and enjoy a big, juicy melodrama, but Before the Rains was too paint-by-numbers to hold me.