Film Review with Robert Mann – The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

11th December 2010

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader 3D ***½
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader 2D ***½

When it was released in cinemas back in Christmas 2005 The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, the big screen adaptation of the first book in the beloved classic literary series by C.S. Lewis, immediately became a huge box office hit both in America and in the United Kingdom, even if it didn’t impress critics quite as much as it impressed moviegoers.
The huge success of the first film meant that adaptations of further chapters in The Chronicles of Narnia were inevitable and in summer 2008 the second instalment was released in the form of The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian. Something went very wrong somewhere though. At the US box office it managed to gross less than half of what The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe took and in the UK it fared even worse, grossing just a quarter of the first film’s box office. So what wrong exactly? Many reasons have been given for the underperformance of that film, ranging from Prince Caspian being the least popular (or one of the least popular) of the books and a story too intensive on battles and lacking in magic to the different release date – Christmas often proves to be a better time to release fantasy movies than the summer months – and weak marketing efforts on the part of Disney. In fact, it was probably a combination of all these things and whatever the reason the underwhelming box office numbers – along with other more complex factors surrounding a dispute between Disney and Phil Anschutz, a real estate baron who is very powerful in the states and who is one of Walden Media’s (the production company that owns the rights to The Chronicles of Narnia movies) biggest shareholders – for the second instalment prompted Disney to not pick up their option to co-finance and produce any further films in the series. This led to production company Walden Media searching for another studio to back and produce The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader with them and they found that studio in 20th Century Fox, although not before doubts began to emerge as to whether the film would ever actually get made. Of course it has been made but it hasn’t gotten away unscathed. The underperformance of Prince Caspian has resulted in the production budget for The Voyage of the Dawn Treader being cut significantly – although this perhaps isn’t as big a deal as it might seem as the story takes place mostly on the seas of Narnia and lacks any big battle sequences, effectively eliminating two of the most expensive elements of the first two films: on location shooting in New Zealand and big epic battles – and, this being a 20th Century Fox film the running time is coming in at less than two hours (studio head Tom Rothman doesn’t seem to think that people want to see films over two hours long – has he even seen the box office takings that Avatar did?), way below the almost two and a half hour running times of the last two films. What’s more, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is the latest film to be released in post production 3D (something that Disney probably wouldn’t have done were they still releasing it), i.e. it was made in 2D and converted to 3D just so that Fox can charge you more to see it. The results from converting 2D movies to 3D this year have been simply atrocious with both Clash of the Titans and The Last Airbender boasting perhaps the worst 3D effects ever seen on film. But, as evidenced by last year’s G-Force and Coraline, good quality conversions can be done and, unlike this year’s post conversion efforts where the conversion to 3D was rushed, ample time has been allowed for the latest Narnia film to be converted to 3D. So, is the 3D actually any good and much more importantly does The Voyage of the Dawn Treader establish itself as a truly worthy follow up to the first two Narnia movies?

Stranded in wartime England, Edmund Pevensie (Skandar Keynes) and his sister Lucy (Georgie Henley) are stuck living with relatives including their stuck up cousin Eustace (Will Poulter), whose home contains a painting of a ship that reminds them of their adventures in Narnia. When the painting suddenly swallows them up, the Pevensies and Eustace find themselves on board the ship – The Dawn Treader – in Narnia once again. There they are greeted by Edmund and Lucy’s friends King Caspian (Ben Barnes) and the warrior mouse Reepicheep (voiced by Simon Pegg), the two of whom are on a mission across the seas of Narnia to track down the seven lost Lords of Narnia. Learning that the fate of Narnia itself rests on their mission, they find themselves taken to mysterious island and a river that turns everything it touches to gold, to confrontations with magical creatures and sinister enemies – and to a reunion with the Great Lion, Aslan (voiced by Liam Neeson).

Going in to see The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader it is hard not to feel as if some crucial ingredient is missing. While the trailer’s claim that this sequel will “return to magic” is largely true, the fact is that the change in studio has had an adverse effect on the overall quality of the film. Whereas Disney spared no expense with the first two ‘Narnia’ movies, producing lavish and truly epic adaptations, 20th Century Fox seems to have adopted the approach of doing the film as cheaply as possible and the result is a film that isn’t without spectacle but that never recreates the epic look and feel of its predecessors and that perhaps establishes itself as the weakest entry in the series to date in terms of its production values. Obviously, a lot of attention is going to be drawn towards the 3D. On this front the good news is that the 3D conversion is MUCH better than that in The Last Airbender, delivering crystal clear picture quality that doesn’t detract from the film in any way and when you put the glasses on there is no loss of vibrancy in the colours of the image. The 3D also provides some fairly notable enhancements to a few scenes, notably a scene featuring a dragon, another featuring a battle with sea serpents and a rather beautiful scene where it snows. Now the bad news – while the 3D conversion is a solid one and technically can’t be considered bad, it certainly isn’t particularly good either. While the 3D may be better than this year’s other post conversions it still isn’t a great advertisement for post production 3D and, just as with The Last Airbender, this is a case of the 3D being better in the trailer than it is in the actual film. For the most part the 3D effects are barely even noticeable – there is very little depth and nothing really comes towards us either although every now and then you can see that parts of the image really are three dimensional – and when they are they don’t really add anything of value to the film (with the possible exception of those aforementioned scenes at least), often being so subtle as to pass by almost completely unnoticed. Put simply, the 3D is passable and probably won’t leave you feeling short changed but if your cinema is showing the film in 2D you may as well see it that way – you won’t be missing much and will save yourself a bit of money. The 3D may be passable but it is hardly “breathtaking” as claimed by the trailer. 3D aside, the film still doesn’t quite live up to the first two movies on many levels but this isn’t to say that the film doesn’t have it strengths. Returning to the more magical aspects of the ‘Narnia’ stories – the key aspect that was missing from Prince Caspian – proves to be a very smart move and with it a real sense of wonder is restored to Narnia. The visual effects are nowhere near as good as in the first two movies but (new to The Chronicles of Narnia) director Michael Apted manages to get plenty of magic and enchantment out of them nonetheless, realising many wondrous magical creations, among them majestic dragons, terrifying sea serpents, beautiful and enchanting night skies and the Dufflepuds (hopping one legged trolls). The effects lack the impact of anything from this film’s predecessors and seem quite cheaply done compared to them, this film not comparing too favourably, but on their own terms the effects still have the power to dazzle and they make for some rather exciting action sequences that won’t appeal as much to adults and again won’t compare with anything in the first two movies but that kids will certainly love. The visuals are also of a decent standard in other areas, the Dawn Treader itself being a wonderfully designed and crafted ship – and it is one of the few things in the film that is real not CG, actually being built in real life – and costume and location design generally being pretty good. The real world only features very sparsely – at the beginning of the film the characters are whisked away to Narnia pretty quickly – only featuring in the opening scenes and a dream sequence that features lately (one that features cameo appearances by Anna Popplewell and William Moseley as Susan and Peter Pevensie) but the World War Two period feel is captured well on the screen in the short time it does feature. Story wise the film will again be quite sufficient to please the younger viewers but anyone looking for more will feel rather underwhelmed with a plot that, just like the 3D, lacks depth. The plot follows a very episodic story format and seems more like a series of adventures loosely linked together than one consistent storyline, although this is perhaps a problem inherited from the book upon which the film is based rather than explicitly an issue with the film itself. The old fashioned style adventure feel kind of works here and makes for an enjoyable if not memorable piece of cinema, also boasting a streak of humour throughout to complement the magic and adventure. The one big failing of the story is a lack of a clear identifiable villain this time around. In place of the White Witch or Miraz of the first two movies we have a faceless adversary – mist that never takes on any other form. The lack of an interesting villain really robs the film of a lot of the tension it could really do with. Apted does at least manage to get some pretty good performances from his cast members. Georgie Henley is simply wonderful as Lucy, being a truly delightful screen presence and proving quite believable as a young girl in all too realistic position of wanting to be pretty but not realising that she already is. As Edmund, Skandar Keynes also proves fairly convincing as his character has to face off temptations that pander to his darker side (something that allows for an encounter with the White Witch (once again played by Tilda Swinton), a character who apparently doesn’t feature in the book). The real scene stealers, however, are Will Poulter and Simon Pegg, the latter taking over from Eddie Izzard as the voice of heroic mouse Reepicheep. Poulter is perfectly cast as a condescending and downright irritating character but the way his character softens as the film progresses proves rather believable thanks to strong work from him and, perhaps most impressively given that Reepicheep is an entirely CG creation, he has a terrific on screen dynamic with his furry co-star, the banter between Eustace and Reepicheep providing much of the film’s humour, the film being pretty funny at times. Elsewhere in the cast, Ben Barnes once again proves to be a strong performer as Caspian and, in a brief role, Laura Brent is suitably ethereal as star turned human Liliandil. So, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is a decent third instalment in the Narnia series but one that won’t leave you with any lasting impression. There is plenty here for kids to enjoy but the film just lacks the depth necessary for older viewers to hold much appreciation for it. The film’s “return to magic” may well be clear in the film itself but sadly there isn’t a whole lot of magic behind the camera.

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Review by Robert Mann BA (Hons)

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