By Matt Brunson
THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: THE VOYAGE OF THE DAWN TREADER
*1/2
DIRECTED BY Michael Apted
STARS Georgie Henley, Skandar Keynes
On the sliding scale of Narnia adaptations, 2008’s Prince Caspian was slightly better than 2005’s The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, but any hope for continued ascendancy in this franchise ends with The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. A costly tentpole that switched studios midstream, the Narnia series (based, of course, on C.S. Lewis’ books) has always come across as timid fantasy fare, squeezing out all the danger and intrigue inherent in the Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings film cycles. Such an overly cautious approach especially nullifies the content of this torpid installment and renders it toothless — just the opposite of what we should expect from a series featuring a lion as its most powerful character. The protagonists — returning siblings Lucy and Edmund Pevensie (Georgie Henley and Skandar Keynes) and obnoxious newcomer Eustace (Will Poulter) — are bruisingly boring (paging the Potter kids!), and their adventures aboard the title seafaring vessel are only slightly less moldy than their skirmishes on land. Forget the Titanic: The Dawn Treader is the real sinking ship.
(Matt Brunson releases his list of the 10 Best & 10 Worst Pictures of 2010. Go here to see the complete article, with write-ups and photos.)
This article appears in Dec 14-20, 2010.
“Forget the Titanic: The Dawn Treader is the real sinking ship.”? You and many other reviewers saw it “sinking” after the admittedly dismal opening weeked. There were many reasons for this. Word of mouth seems to be taking over and improving the numbers at the box office. “Expert”(or whatever) reviewers are split 50/50 or so, but 80% or so of “normal” folk who see it actually like it a lot. It’s about at 70 million domestic and over 231 million worldwide. Not great, but a lot better that what most were expecting after the opening weekend. Production budget was 155 million. There’s still a ways to go, but it appears the Dawn Treader is rising. Perhaps even to a level that will keep the franchise alive.
I saw it last night. Absolute rubbish and complete shambles. Agree with the review
I thought the Voyage of Dawn Treader was a fantastic movie and cannot wait for it to come to DVD April 8th!