Voyage of the Dawn Treader: Struggles to Stay Afloat

After Prince Caspian failed with critics and fans, the Narnia franchise gives it one more college try with Voyage of the Dawn Treader. It's the third installment in the fantasy series which follows the youngest Pevensies, Lucy and Edmund, as they return to Narnia. The country seems to be fine and peaceful without them, so the children question why they've been summoned back at all. Unfortunately, by the end of the film, I too was asking myself the same thing. The movie isn't terrible (it is better than Caspian), but it's not a memorable journey.

The story begins as Lucy and Edmund are stuck staying with their English cousin Eustace (a young curmudgeon who provides the film with its comical relief). Eustace is fanatical about science and facts, so when Lucy and Edmund dare mention Narnia, he writes it off as silly nonsense. That is, until one of the paintings in their room comes alive, sucking the three children aboard the Dawn Treader with their old friends, Prince Caspian and Reepicheep the rodent.

For more of my thoughts on the film just read more.

With the ship's crew, Lucy, Edmund, and Eustace make landfall in the Lone Islands, a territory which has fallen to a slave trade. Captives who are not sold on the auction block get sent out in boats into the water, where a strange green mist appears and swallows them up. No one knows where the people disappear to, but Caspian and the children sail off out to find out. They hop from one remote island to another with one mission: to gather the seven swords of the lost Lords of Narnia in order to banish the evil mist. To complete their task, each of the characters will have to cope with their own inner darkness. For Lucy, it's her jealousy of her sister's beauty; for Edmund, it's his desire to step out of his brother's shadow.

If the film sounds a little preachy, it's because it is. Every scene is an opportunity to hammer home yet another moral. I know that religious themes abound in the books, but this installment really seems to play them up more so than its predecessors. Kids, however, may like the film for its cool special effects, complete with disappearing doors and jumping elf-like creatures.

The problem of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is that it lacks a wow factor, and it's hitting theaters at a time when audiences are still coming off the excitement of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I. Next to it, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader just looks mediocre. Whereas Harry Potter fans are obviously pleased with how their books translate onto the big screen, Chronicles of Narnia followers may be left longing for more.