Stars: 3 out of 5
Pros: Acting, effects, scenes from the book captured well
Cons: Added plot lines take away from the overall story
The Bottom Line:
The
need to add plot
Way over complicated things
Will disappoint fans
The Temptation to Mess Up the Book was too Great
I loved the first of the recent Narnia movies. I felt like it kept the spirit of the story
while changing things only to make the movie stronger. The second one disappointed many fans, and I
must admit the liberty they took with the book was a bit disappointing. I was hoping they would stick closer to the
book for The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Sadly, they went even further from the source
material, making a bigger mess of things.
Edmund and Lucy (Skandar Keynes and Georgie Henley) are
staying with their aunt, uncle, and cousin while the rest of the family is in America . Sadly, this isn't a happy visit, especially
since Eustace Clarence Scrubb (Will Poulter) is a horrid boy, always provoking
them and then tattling on them.
Then the three of them are transported to Narnia via a
painting in a bedroom. They find
themselves joining King Caspian (Ben Barnes) on his quest to find out what
happened to the seven lords his uncle banished.
But they've just begun their quest when they find out that
an evil green mist is threatening Narnia.
And the only way to stop it is to find the swords the seven lords had
and place them on Aslan's table. Will
they face temptation and their fears to complete the quest?
I reread the series this year, and when I was rereading this
book, I realized just how hard the story would be to translate to a movie. Basically, it's a collection of short stories
loosely held together by the search for the seven lords. And to properly tell each adventure while not
making a mammoth movie would take some serious work.
So, how did they handle it here? By adding a green mist which wasn't in the
book at all. As soon as I found out
about it, the Narnia geek inside me was ready to dislike it, but I tried to
view the movie with an open mind. Sadly,
it didn't convince me that this added layer of plot added anything at all to
the story. Furthermore, they put in two
extra characters that aren't developed at all, so we don't care about them and
the outcome of their sub-plot. Again,
that's time that could be spent on the real story to tell it better. And, their green mist plot made no sense on
many levels, like why it's news to everyone from Narnia if it's about to take
over the land. And there were multiple
things that didn't work for me in the climax of this plot thread.
Now, I do get what they were trying to do with the green
mist. If there is any underlying theme
to the book, it's the power of temptation and how dangerous it can be. They still could have played that up without
needing to introduce any of the green mist.
As it was, the scenes involving the temptation and the consequences were
some of the best in the movie, even if they didn't completely follow the
book. They could have done a great job
with this without adding the green mist.
If I sound like I didn't enjoy it at all, that's wrong. There was plenty to love here. They managed to include all the side trips
here. The order was changed, although it
still worked for this story. The
Dufflepuds especially were the riot I expected them to be from the book. They got the character of Eustace right, too;
he was appropriately annoying without ruining the film.
The acting was great.
Ben Barnes was much better here than he was in Prince Caspian. Frankly, the entire cast was great. My lack of emotional investment in a few
scenes wasn't due to lack of acting ability but due to the rushed nature of the
storytelling. I was sorry to see that
Eddie Izzard wasn't back as Reepicheep.
The mouse didn't have quite the same bite to him as the in the last
movie, although Simon Pegg filled the part well.
The film is full of special effects, and they were
amazing. I especially loved how they
played the first and last scenes, although there was a pretty awesome fight
with a sea monster and a very believable dragon as well.
I saw the movie in 3D at a midnight showing. While it was fun and a few scenes were
spectacular that way, I'm not sure it was worth the extra money. It would have been just as good in 2D.
One final note. The
books drop the World War II references after the first one. I find it interesting that they have kept
them around in the films. They certainly
fit the England
timeline of the stories. And fans of the
books will find a nice shout out to the next story in the last few seconds of
the film. Plus the credits use the
original illustrations.
I was a kid when it came out, so I've always simply enjoyed it for what it is.
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