Through the Wardrobe onto a boat?

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader – Michael Apted

To end the year I’ve chosen a film series dear to my Mother’s heart, but not as close to mine, just the tradition of course of going to see the latest instalment, very much how we go see Harry Potter and i am equally in love with Potter as is my dear ma ma. So paying for the tickets and the refreshments too, i sit down with my 3D glasses to the latest Narnia adventure probably involving the children, a wardrobe and an evil queen; it will have over the top battle sequences, magical creatures and distant lands and will also have some British cast members I’ll obscurely know of. And was i right? Sadly i missed a few things out and also over sold the film. Having walked just feet from the film, i realised that the 3D glasses that i had brought were useless in the film, utterly useless. It wasn’t Tron Legacy, it wasn’t Avatar, it was a gimmick they thought to jump onto to gain more money and for that i shake my head in disgust, taking money from innocent cinemagoers like families who just want to get their children happy over Christmas. I sat there along with young children and families and just wished the filmmakers and studios would be honest and just not make people pay an extra 3 or 4 pounds for essential the privilege of wearing glasses.

Set around the war still, wear near the end, two of the main four children from the first two are back, Edmund and Lucy who hate living at their cousins house Eustace, discover a magical painting in their room is a portal into Narnia. They end up in the sea where the massive ship Dawn Treader is floating and the three of them end up meeting up with Prince Caspian again along with Reepicheep, formally voiced by Eddie Izzard now by the wonderful Simon Pegg who is clearly the best thing in the whole film. On this ship they realise that all is not right with Narnia and that the 7 lord of Narnia have gone missing and they must find them. This leads to magical lands involving invisible creatures, terrifying treasures, villainous sorts and would mean epic fights for the crew of the Dawn Treader. It’s a pace which just plops along not really getting any better. It’s deeply religious but the whole book series is and it tries to throw several deep meaningful lessons your way, but when your 21 these lessons aren’t really gonna affect you. From the reaction of the children around me, they did love seeing Aslan again and they loved Reepicheep, so i guess just showing animated creatures amazes them. The special effects are okay, they won’t blow you away but it’s clear that the transition to 3D was just a process that wasn’t needed.

I’ve seen many reviews about this being the best so far, it’s not, the first is much better than this, and i don’t know where the series will go to next.

4/10

Simon Childs