‘The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader’ Review

‘Voyage of the Dawn Treader’ is on par with the two previous Narnia films. If you’re a fan of the books, you’ll probably enjoy it.

Rating:

3 out of 5

Screen Rant’s Vic Holtreman reviews The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

Will this be the final Narnia movie? I suppose the box office will tell -- While the first film, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe grossed $745MM worldwide, Prince Caspian did little better than half of that. The consensus is that each film is not quite as good as the one that came before, and we’ll see if Dawn Treader’s box office goes along with both the financial and critical trend.

In this third film (and the order of the films does not match the chronology of the books), Lucy and Edmund Pevensie (Georgie Henley, Skandar Keyne) are stuck living with a dismissive uncle and bratty cousin Eustace Scrubb (Will Poulter) in England, while older brother and sister Susan and Peter (Anna Popplewell and William Moseley, who are limited to brief cameos in this film) are off living in America. At 17, Edmund is still suffering from “younger brother complex” while Lucy is transitioning from being a girl to a young woman. Lucy also suffers from older sibling envy, wishing she was as beautiful as Susan.

Edmund is having a tougher time adjusting to life as a regular teenager in WWII England -- after having been a prince in Narnia, having fought battles, etc. It is especially difficult in light of having to cow-tow to cousin Eustace, who is played with delightful annoyance by young Poulter. Eustace is a “realist” who makes fun of Lucy and Edmunds’ “fantasies” about Narnia. This may as well be a brother and sister version of Harry Potter living with his terrible extended family -- of course this story was written LONG before the Harry Potter books.

Soon (of course) Lucy and Edmund find themselves drawn back into the world of Narnia, where they once again meet Prince (now King) Caspian (Ben Barnes). The CGI rat Reepicheep (voiced by Simon Pegg) is back as well. A bit of a wrench is thrown in the works as whiny Eustace has made it into Narnia with our intrepid young veterans. It seems a darkness is descending across the land, and since Susan and Peter are now too old, Edmund and Lucy have been summoned back to put things right.

We’ve got hand to hand combat, sword fights, a dragon-shaped ship and a giant, tentacled creature that will give the Kraken a run for its money. It’s a beautifully shot film, but once again the heroes are not the highlight. Will Poulter as Eustace steals the film -- he’s the kind of character that you’ll love to hate… the epitome of smarmy. And of course it’s no spoiler to say that he has a change of heart by the end of the film. Another highlight (for me, anyway) is Simon Pegg as Reepicheep -- maybe because so much of his time was spent with Eustace.

So what about the leads? I just don’t know… while they demonstrated more depth than in the previous films, there is still some magic ingredient missing here. I’ve always felt that these Narnia films seem to be devoid of a soul -- ironic considering the source material. While the Harry Potter movies (for example) feel rich and deep, these films seem to have everything on the surface. I’m not saying all the blame rests on the shoulders of the young leads -- but there’s definitely a spark I’ve yet to find in these films.

And then there is the good old 3D issue. The film was not shot in 3D, but had it added in post production. I’ve said many times that I’m not a fan of “after the fact 3D” -- but I will say that this film had the best of that variety that I’ve seen to date. It wasn’t AS distracting as the post 3D I’ve seen in other films, but that’s still not to say that it’s good in an objective sense. To me, even the best post-production 3D makes me think of the pictures I used to see when I looked at those little circular slides in those old stereoscopic Viewmaster toys: A number of 2D items each placed at a different distance from the camera.

Here’s a trailer for The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader:

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New ‘Voyage of the Dawn Treader’ Clips

The family-friendly fantasy flick (say that three times fast) The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader arrives in theaters next week, now under the 20th Century Fox banner.

A new clip has emerged online from the film, which hopes to attract moviegoers who adore the colorful and imaginative world of Narnia -- or those looking for a distraction until they can glimpse the more monochromatic world of “The Grid” in TRON: Legacy the week after Voyage of the Dawn Treader hits theaters.

The latest Chronicles of Narnia features the return of Georgie Henley and Skandar Keynes as Lucy and Edmund Pevensie, off on yet another adventure full of dangerous beasts and magical creatures. Along for the ride this time is their cousin Eustace Scrubb (Will Poulter), a young man with an irritating disposition who is not too pleased about being dragged into a dangerous fantasy world -- needless to say, Eustace gets to do a bit of growing up in the film.

Simon Pegg provides the vocals for the warrior mouse Reepicheep. The pint-sized fellow provides Scrubb with a quick lesson in both manners and fencing, as you’ll see in the Voyage of the Dawn Treader clip below:

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In case you missed them, we’ve rounded up a few more clips from Voyage of the Dawn Treader. These next two videos show Lucy, Edmund, and Eustace’s arrival in Narnia and provides some basic exposition about the film’s plot -  the second one also illustrates just how irritating Eustace can be at times (seriously, the kid’s in a magical world, looking at an enchanted map, and still acting like a disbelieving ass).

Watch those scenes below:

Voyage of the Dawn Treader will hopefully be a fun adventure that benefits from the main cast members being a bit older (and more experienced), as well as the advances in CGI technology, which have come a long way since the big-budget version of The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe hit theaters five years ago. Dawn Treader is also both a visually and thematically brighter fantasy tale than the most recent Harry Potter movie, which should help convince ticket-buying parents who passed on the darker, more adult entry in the boy wizard franchise to revisit Narnia instead.

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader hits 2D and 3D theaters in the U.S on December 10th, 2010.

Source: 20th Century Fox (via Moviefone)

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‘Transformers 3′ Teaser Trailer Coming With ‘Narnia: Dawn Treader’ & ‘TRON: Legacy’

There is new drama regarding the 3D format of Michael Bay’s third entry in the Transformers franchise, entitled Transformers: Dark of the Moon. Yet another movie website recently ran a post claiming that Bay is having trouble working with 3D and that Transformers 3 is suffering as a result.

Bay has yet again responded via his own platforms, and is still maintaining that Transformers 3 was shot in cutting-edge 3D and will look amazing onscreen…as we will soon be able to see for ourselves.

For those with long memories, this Transformers 3 3D issue has popped up and been swatted down about a handful of times since production on the film began. We here at Screen Rant even managed to incur the wrath of Bay for a story we ran on the matter.

By now it’s pointless to continue tossing out conspiracy theories – and more to the point, why argue about this 3D issue when we can judge the first footage from the film within the next couple of weeks?

While swatting down the latest naysayer claims, Michael Bay let this little hint slip about a Transformers: Dark of the Moon teaser trailer:

“…I will give full details of my process and why I liked 3D in the next week right before the Transformers announcement piece comes out on Tron and Narnia.”

For those who aren’t movie buffs eager to see the two films Michael Bay referred to: the next installment in Fox’s Narnia series, Voyage of the Dawn Treader, will be in theaters on December 10th, while Disney’s sci-fi sequel TRON: Legacy will be packing 3D theaters on December 17th. If the Transformers: Dark of the Moon teaser trailer is to be released alongside those two films, we should expect it to debut online (albeit in 2D) anytime within 10 – 14 days from now – at least by my estimation.

Check out the early synopsis for Dark of the Moon below:

In this new movie, the Autobots and Decepticons become involved in a perilous space race between the U.S. and Russia, and once again human Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf)  has to come to the aid of his robot friends. There’s new characters too, including a new villain in the form of Shockwave, a longtime ‘Transformers’ character who rules Cybertron while the Autobots and Decepticons battle it out on Earth.

There will supposedly be a lot of reveals in the film about the intertwined histories of humans and the robots from Cybertron, with the usual big battles and massive explosions you expect from Michael Bay.

Ironically enough, due to all this controversy over the 3D format, what might’ve otherwise been viewed as another lackluster sequel in a so-so franchise is now going to be a lightning rod for scrutiny. Expect hardcore movie fans and Blogosphere reporters alike to put this film under a hi-res microscope – and don’t be surprised when somebody posts a shot-for-shot analysis of the 2D teaser trailer to determine the potential quality of the 3D (or lack thereof) in every frame.

Look for the Transformers 3 teaser trailer in front of The Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader on December 10th and TRON: Legacy on December 17th.

Transformers: Dark of the Moon will be in (3D) theaters on July 1, 2011.

Source: Michael Bay Forums

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