I have been in a work-release program for reasons I will leave for another time, and rather than spending my sick day hiding from work and drinking Jack Daniels like usual, I was forced to take orphans to the theater. After the last time, I was forbidden to take minors to the “Performing Arts” theater better known as “SoCo (soco.iowastripclubs.com)” in North Davenport. Therefore, my afternoon was spent sober at the 53rd Street Showcase Cinemas watching “The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian“. (The manager caught me trying to sneak the rug rats into “Sex and the City: Sluts and Nymphos Gone Wild”.)

Let’s back up a couple years and remind you what the first movie was about. Narnia #1 was a quaint story of four English school children in war-torn England. The children are all a bit strange and when they come out of the closet, they end up meeting circus folk who take them in and don’t judge them for their lifestyle choice. Society is, however, a cruel mistress. In fact, a cruel, white, puckered-up mistress. The wicked white witch is a pedophile and she is lurking in the park one day when she spots the awkward and knobby young Edmund. She lures him into her pimped out sleigh with candy, and chains him up and makes him perform tricks. He seems to like the attention, but eventually he longs for the days he spent in the closet with his brother and sisters. Eventually they all help the the circus freaks win some spelling bee or something. I kind of fell asleep at this point because I’d been drinking. When I woke up, the children were going back in the closet and the movie ended.

This sequel picks up about a year later, when the children are “summoned” back to Narnia. It seems Narnia had been all nice and filled with performing bears and circus people until the Mexicans invaded. The Mexicans took all the jobs and the midgets and horse-men and trick mice had to seek refuge in the forrest, sleeping under leaves like I do sometimes when I am drunk and can’t find my van.

The Mexicans are led by a smarmy fellow who knocked up his chiquita and had a baby, and if he kills his nephew then his kid will be next in line to be King. (Same old story, so far.) So, he enlists his homeys to kill the kid and they chase him into the forrest, and they get attacked by a band of midgets. This is when the prince uses a special “pipe”. To a film critic like me, this is an obvious drug reference. It means that the children in reality are doing drugs, and they only imagine they are being transported to Narnia, like when I did hits of acid back in the 60s and imagined I was chasing a negro Bugs Bunny with Elmer Fudd in some kind of strange Technicolor cartoon. (Very unsettling!) I suppose the children were traumatized by having to stay in the closet, and deal with the abduction, S&M, molestation as well as the bombing by the Nazis in the first movie, and this drove them to become drug addicts.

The gay and carefree children are “magically” transported (read: magic mushrooms) to run naked on a beach. Freud would have had a field day with this movie, but I am not an expert or a Scientologist, so I will not take liberties and assume a cigar is a penis or anything of the sort. They have illusions of grandeur, and imagine they all have large swords and prance around the forrest until animals start talking to them. This is when they rescue a midget and he explains he is with a circus troupe. He convinces them to run away and join the circus. They meet a talking skunk and some gay mice (French). They learn that Prince Caspian summoned them with the “magic pipe”. I nodded off here, but I think they all did some weed and went to sleep. That’s what I would have done. All I know is, when I woke up Fredo and Shaniqua had eaten all my popcorn!

Blah, Blah, Blah and giant flying birds and sword waiving and next we end up on a big soccer field where the Mexicans and Circus folk are ready to kill one another. This is when the little girl wanders off to find a circus animal (a big lion) that got loose. They have a plan to keep the Mexicans distracted for several hours while the new King duels Peter. By the time the girl brings the lion back the big lunch the Mexicans had is making them long for a siesta, the kids and their buddy with the pipe blow weed across the field and that makes the Mexicans a little high and a lot more mellow. So, when they see the big lion, they get tricked onto a bridge that is only like two feet above a tiny river, but they are high and think it is a much bigger river. Someone must have opened some dam upstream, because a wave comes by and washes them into the river. Since Mexicans are all strict Catholics, they interpret all this as some religious sign and put down their swords. The little girl, Lucy, has a bottle of tequila, I think, and they all party hard like it’s 1299 AD.

I know I haven’t been paying too much attention. I was a little distracted wondering if I would get reimbursed for the popcorn. Also, the orphans wandered off somewhere with the keys to my van. But, I am a stalwart reporter, and stayed to watch the rest of the movie.

The circus freaks and the Mexicans realize in the end, they all just like to get high. Everyone is all friends now, and the children had to go home (their drug trip was ending). So, the four war orphans walked through the crotch of a tree and ended back in England. In the first movie, they came out of the closet and in this movie they experimented with drugs and ran away to join the circus. In the end, they learned a valuable lesson, that there is no place like home. Except, they are war orphans and they don’t have a home, in which case drugs are a good way to forget everything about your life really sucks.

Well, I need to try to find my two charges and return them to the orphanage, or I definitely won’t get reimbursed. I have a plan to smoke a fat one in my van, if I can find them, because they have my keys. Once they see how I act when I am wasted, they will realize the movies only glamorize drugs. I don’t expect recognition for being such a good role model, the ability to mold young impressionable minds is reward enough.