The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

The third Narnia movie based off of the third Narnia book sees Lucy and Edmund, along with their annoying cousin Eustace, find themselves back in Narnia. Well, actually they find themselves on the open seas of Narnia and meet Caspian who is traveling the seas on his royal ship. What ensues is a lot of island-hopping and adventure finding.

Despite a lack of a cohesive,linear plot line (even though they really do try to connect it all), there’s some really good character stuff going on here. Lucy and Ed are still living in the shadows of their older siblings and are tested to become their own selves, while Eustace grows into not being such a snot-nosed kid. In fact, the kid who played Eustace had his character spot on. The friendship that grows between him and Reepicheep is also quite touching.

You can tell that this franchise is running out of steam however. This is seen in the lack of CGI quality in the effects. Not that they’re terrible, but the creatures (and even Aslan this time around) are noticeably animated which is the fatal flaw of visual effects. The fight sequences are also incredibly lame, feeling like an episode of Xena.

That said, I still enjoyed this film more than Prince Caspian a couple of years ago, though it lacked some of the wonder and awe of the first film, which itself lacked much of the wonder and awe of the books. Not that I begrudge them that too badly since its pretty difficult to recapture the whimsical spirit of one of the greatest fantasy novels there is.
7/10