The Voyage of the Dawn Treader Review

20th Century Fox proved itself worthy of taking over the film adaptation of C.S. Lewis's beloved children's books with The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Disney sold the rights to Fox after what it perceived as a lackluster performance at the box office for the previous films, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, and especially Prince Caspian. Fox took the reins and handed them to director Michael Apted (Nell, Enough and Amazing Grace). Much of the cast was carried over from the first two films with Will Poulter (Son of Rambow) joining in with an excellent performance as the horrid cousin, Eustace Scrubb.

While Disney seemed to want to shy away from the kiddies seeing anything overly frightening or violent, Fox jumped at the chance to delve into the intense situations Lewis provided in his novels. The film moved along steadily as the crew of The Dawn Treader encounters dragons, witches and wizards, slavers and an underlying evil that haunts their deepest fears. The story has several deep emotional facets, dealing with redemption, bravery, and self-betterment.

The special effects, cinematography and musical score was wonderful, effectively painting a beautiful picture of the world of Narnia. The cast portrayed their characters wonderfully. The children from the previous films, Georgie Henley, who played Lucy, and Skandar Keynes, who played Edmund, matured as actors considerably from the previous films and delivered believable performances.

The movie followed the novel rather well, especially considering Hollywood's habit of tainting and twisting iconic literature into whatever they think people will pay to see. The writers did feel the need to create an underlying villain that isn't present in the book. C.S. Lewis's theme in Dawn Treader seemed to be adventure for adventure's sake. The explorer's spirit and man's, and mouse's need to sail to the ends of the world just to see what is there kept young readers coming back generation after generation. Apparently, movie-goers have to see a bad guy be defeated to feel like they're getting their $12 dollars worth. Apart from that, and a few scene changes, probably due to time constraints, the movie stayed true to its origin.

Critics seem to be harder on the film than the fans. Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a 49% with the critics and a "fresh rating" of 66. Critical comments tend to claim the movie is "bland" and not "very challenging." One could wonder if any of the critics were actually fans of the novels. With explosions and gunfights every 10 minutes in almost every blockbuster movie, a simple adventure story, recalling times past, isn't exciting enough for us. People's personal triumphs aren't as likely to keep someone on the edge of their seat as half-naked werewolves or nubile, pubescent "rock stars."

Another thing that critics found fault with was the moral lessons and underlying tone of Christianity that Lewis wrote into his novels. (Lewis was a theologian in every sense of the word, most of his writing centered on the Christian faith.) They apparently thought Fox should write out the personal redemption and the faith in the unseen that are such an important part of this story. I for one was very pleased, and surprised, with the writers' and director's choice to not only keep those parts of the story, but embrace them.

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader delivers in a such a powerful way that is so rarely seen in movies nowadays, that it may not hit with everyone, but to fans of the books, and anyone who still has an imagination, and an adventurous spirit, it is a magical time of excitement, capable of transporting this writer back into a child-like state of wonderment.