Movie Review: Chronicles of Narnia Dawn Treader

Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader


Basic Premise
Edmond and Lucy are called back to Narnia with their cousin Eustace in tow. Together with Caspian and the rest of the crew of the Dawn Treader, they must fight an ever-growing evil that threatens to encompass all of Narnia in its evil darkness.




Review
The third installment in the Narnia series. It lives up to the first two and is entertaining. It also got really heavy on the Christian metaphors. For all the people who were doubting the intent of CS Lewis until this moment, doubt no more. They almost flat out stated it at the end of the movie.

This was a character driven movie. Or actually, only one character drove it. Lucy and Edmund are pretty much the same from beginning to end. To me this movie was a huge introduction for Eustace. Since Peter and Susan are no longer part of the gang, they had to fill the gap somehow.

I also say this movie is character driven, because the plot is a little superfluous. There is an unknown evil that must be defeated but only after we prove to cousin Eustace that there is more to heaven and earth than is dreamed of in his philosophy (thank you Mr. Shakespeare).

I also wasn't impressed with the scene that was ripped straight out of It's a Wonderful Life (which came out in 1946, so I don't feel wrong in saying that it might actually have been ripped off). The scene that was reminiscent of the Ghostbusters might be a funny coincidence if it appeared written in the original novel the way it appeared on screen. If not, then the writers and director need to stretch their imagination a little more next, or at least "borrow" from better source material. Having never read the books, I cannot say.

This movie also had a few wandering singularities that I found a bit annoying. There were characters that seemed to appear and disappear. While you might not think that is important, when a movie takes place on a ship, I'd like to think I'd see the man with goat legs and ram horns more than once amongst a ship manned predominately by humans.

Yet again I'm struck with the question of why are kids being sent to do the work of adults? But that's a discussion for another forum.

Parents, this is good family fun. Even if you don't want to see this movie but the kids are bugging you to go, take heart in the fact that you can sleep through it like the guy one row in front of me did (he also snored). Except for the snoring, the theater was quiet, so it passes the kid test.

Will I buy the DVD? Yes, I'm a completionist. I have the first two, I have to buy the third. Will I see the fourth if there is one? Yes, I just answered that question. Will I ever read the books? More than likely when I have children and they need a bed time story.

If you saw the first two, then there is no reason not to see the third. If you have never seen any of the Narnia movies, then this isn't the place to start. Voyage of the Dawn Treader relies heavily on the fact that you have seen the previous movies, especially the second one.


Previews
- Hop - The teaser on the big screen was as unimpressive as it was on my computer screen. I need to see more before I can make a decision, but I'm already leaning towards no.

- Born to Be Wild - This is definitely a DVD movie but I want to see it just because it looks like so much fun to have raised elephants by hand.

- Arthur Christmas - A teaser for a movie coming out Christmas 2011 and Santa's son Arthur. I reserve judgment until a longer preview releases.

- Mars Needs Moms - And this movie needs a more interesting plot for me to go see it.

- Transformers: Dark of the Moon - Looks interesting... so far. I can only hope this movie is worth all of the madness during production that I've heard about.

- Gulliver's Travels - This is definitely a DVD movie for me.

- Rio - Now that I've seen a longer trailer, I think I might be interested in seeing this. Not sure if I want to see it in theaters or not, but I want to see it.