Review of The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (2010) by Kenneth L — 23 Jul 2011

I pretty well enjoyed this movie, and thought it was an improvement on the Prince Caspian movie. It has a decent sense of wonder, and it looks amazing. I was also surprised by how glad I was to see Lucy, Edmund, Aslan and Reepicheep again.

The story, which admittedly is pretty typical and doesn't have a really strong logical progression, has Lucy and Edmund and their unpleasant cousin Eustace finding themselves in the seas of Narnia, where they are picked up by (now) King Caspian en route to find the seven swords of seven lords so they can... do something. Okay, so the specifics can be hazy, but you get the idea.

While the overall narrative of the movie can be a bit confusing, it usually works really well on a scene-to-scene basis. There are some enchanting moments involving invisible monsters and an invisible house, and the climactic battle is exciting. I was also surprised by how well they developed the character relationship between Eustace and Reepicheep, especially given that Eustace is a dragon for 1/3 of the movie.

Georgie Henley and Skandar Keynes are both good as Lucy and Edmund, and it's interesting to see how much they've grown up over the course of the movies. With the Harry Potter movies, we get a new one every year, so those kids only look marginally older in each film; with the Narnia films only coming out every 3 years, the differences are more striking, and yet these are clearly the same Edmund and Lucy we remember from the first movie. Simon Pegg does a great voiceover job as Reepicheep. Ben Barnes's character is unfortunately kind of limited. Will Poulter is very funny as sour little Eustace.

The movie is loaded with special effects, and they look really pretty. I'm a little surprised it didn't get a visual effects Oscar nomination over, say, Iron Man 2, actually. The effects creating, say, an invisible door opening into a house are great to look at. The musical score is good, even if it seems to be borrowing from the Pirates of the Caribbean movies at times. The movie generally just has a good sense of how to be an old-fashioned adventure.