In the third installment of The Chronic WHAT!? cles of Narnia series comes The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. In a series that doesn’t hide the fact that it has religious intentions, this movie follows suit and doesn’t downplay any of the “teachings.” We’re shown the lessons of faith, belief, and the after life. In Narnia, the world is flat. In our world, this movie is flat. Even though this is the first Narnia film shown in three dimensions, the movie really only has one. If you enjoyed The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and Prince Caspian, you probably won’t mind this film but the series is in a steady decline. If you’re going into the movie with no background, you probably won’t care for it at all.
In Dawn Treader, we join Edmund, Lucy, and their cousin Eustace as they journey to Narnia for another adventure. If you remember from the last film, Peter and Susan were told by Aslan that they will never return because they’ve gained everything they could from their Narnian experiences. They do, however, have small cameos in this film. If you remember form the books, this is the end of the Pevensies trilogy and the last visit for Edmund and Lucy…they pass the torch on to Eustace for the next couple of adventures. Along with this trio, King Caspian and Aslan round out the main characters. Woah, enough background for you? Let’s move on…
glowy lights
Most of this story takes place on a ship at sea. You won’t get seasick, but you might get claustrophobic because there aren’t many places to go on the ship. They do get off the ship at a few ports but those scenes are fairly short…you can expect to see a lot of water in this voyage. Other than the main characters, you don’t really get involved with anyone else. Other characters show up, say hi, and then are placed in the background so there isn’t any character depth or development seeing how we already know the major characters. There are a couple fight scenes scattered throughout the movie but they aren’t as epic as the first two movies. Dawn Treader focuses a lot more on the story of Lucy and bringing Eustace the Useless into the spotlight.
This is Eustace, you'll be seeing more of him if they continue the series
While the first movie, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was a great epic fantasy that entertained all audiences while promoting its religious undertones and the second movie, Prince Caspian, was an action-centered movie that had too many battles and not enough wonderment and forgot its faith-full messages from the book, this third movie, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, tried to mix everything back in. However, this isn’t the fairy tale of Goldy Locks and they didn’t get it just right. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is the most boring of the series so far.
What's that? A good script??
I was rolling my eyes throughout the whole movie when they weren’t closed from boredom. I know the movie is targeted towards kids and made on a religious base, but the messages they were shoving in the faces of the audiences were so blatant and corny that I think even the youngest audience members would groan. I’m sure parents and religious leaders will applaud the movie for sharing the Good word but as a movie in general, it’s just not entertaining enough to keep the attention of a moviegoer and feels more like a promotional video you would watch in a church. If you’re a fan of C.L. Lewis, go ahead…otherwise, stay away.
Tags: The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
Matthew Fong created advancescreenings.com and is the lead contributor. He watches every type of movie and will try almost anything twice. You can follow him on twitter here: @matthewfong
