The Age of Commercialism

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

Walden Media has done it again with a third wonderful Narnian fantasy adventure. The plot, the action, the effects, the acting and the humour all soar high! Despite being quite different from the book, it is quite good in its own right. Will Poulter does a fantastic job as the comically annoying Eustace Scrubb, who provides heaps of comedy (Poulter is the best actor in the film). The ending is also pretty good emotionally. It also has both the best effects and highest level of effects in the series. All in all, a good movie and a welcome ending to the trilogy.

The third and final instalment of the recent big-budget adaptations of C. S. Lewis's NARNIA books, VOYAGE OF THE DAWN TREADER is a mini-masterpiece in comparison to the strong PRINCE CASPIAN that came before it. As a film, it's fast-paced and engaging, a children's adventure film that feels refreshingly old-fashioned and much like the classic adaptations of Edith Nesbit, for example. I should note that I haven't read the book.The plotting sees the older kids from the first two films jettisoned while the youngsters (Edmund and Lucy) now take their place. Once again, they team up with Caspian (Ben Barnes, never more than one dimensional) to go on an epic maritime adventure, tackling sea monsters, magic and a mysterious green mist en route.A potential problem with VOYAGE OF THE DAWN TREADER is that we've seen it all before, but this matters little when the film is so entertaining from the word go. This effects-packed movie features all manner of CGI backdrops and one or two CGI beasties, similar to the Harryhausen epics of old. Will Poulter, as newcomer cousin Eustace, gives a masterful and hilarious performance and a real star-making turn. The movie has a decent pace, the introductory scenes are very well realised (I loved the way the kids access Narnia this time around) and it's more colourful and involving as any PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN film you might name. For me, the trilogy ended on a high.

1. My first feature film in 3D. Honestly don't know what the fuss is about. The 10% of the time that the 3D-ness was actually used, it was pretty cool but most of the time, it's just an excuse to charge more for the ticket. I mean the adverts that came before used more of the whole 3D effect.2. Lucy's obsession with wanting to look like Susan was a bit weird. Lucy actually ~becoming~ Susan was even weirder. Still, it meant that we had Anna Popplewell on screen. (Has anyone read the book more recently than me and can tell me how close the film followed the book and what was changed? Was this entire storyline completely invented?) 3. The picture Lucy had of Susan and Peter in the photo frame in her room was one of my favourite behind-the-scenes photos 4. Cousin Eustace was really annoying for the first half of the film but then *spoiler* happened and he was less annoying.5. Caspian/Edmund vying for power .... total throw back to Caspian/Peter having the same fight. Edmund has a serious inferiority complex. He was much less annoying in this film though.6. Tilda Swinton always freaks me out.7. Reepicheep and Aslan ..... SO FREAKING CUTE. Yes, I know that they are animated characters but I want to hug them.8. Most importantly, WHAT THE FLIPPING HELL HAPPENED TO CASPIAN'S DODGY European ACCENT?!?!?!?!? He's back to being British all of a sudden! Did they watch Prince Caspian through and realise how awful it was that they just decided to scrap it?! HAVE THEY HEARD OF CONTINUITY???!?!?!?!?! Is there an interview out there where this question is brought up? Please say there is! (ETA: Found it ....... they just realised that CS Lewis was a quintessentially English writer which is why the Telmarines became British instead of some flavour of Spanish all of a sudden?!?!?!).Anyone else feel like this film was Pirates Of The Caribbean meets The Hobbit meets Harry Potter (especially that scene in the Magician's House) with a tiny bit of Narnia thrown in for good measure? Lol. It was good, though. The CG work was amazing.

I decided to watch Voyage Of The Dawn Treader because I've seen the BBC adaptation of The Silver Chair and I honest to god wanted to fill in the blanks. In all honesty though, this is the second best in the series, I say this because this didn't have a relationship that felt tacked on (which I've heard it was!) but there are still a few things that I didn't like.So Edmund and Lucy are now the protagonists and Edmund tries signing up to World War 2? Why? Well, it's because he sees himself as a King and actually fighting wars means he should do the same for England as well as Narnia, Lucy now envy's Susan's beauty because of a story arc that you can see coming a mile away and happens just the same way. They also have a cousin, he starts out extremely annoying and through one thing leading to another, they end up in Narnia and like always, it's usually in the strangest way possible. What happens then is they meet Caspian after a couple of Narnian years since the last movie and they end up on a Voyage through which they find Green mist swallowing up people at sea like The Fog and they have to save Narnia again.Okay, I'll go down what I didn't like - I knew from the start that Narnia was going to parallel Christianity. I mean if you think about it, Aslan represents Jesus and magic users seem to be for the most part villains. But it's subtle in these movies. The problem is that there's a single monologue that says that Aslan has another name and the entire reason for them arriving three times is to know him a little in Narnia and know him better by his other name. This is about as unsubtle as you can get. It literally said it was a parallel to Jesus like the entire series was a way to convert others to Christianity. I think even when I was a Christian I would have hated this monologue and this is the second time I've seen it uttered (the first being in The Silver Chair adaptation), It just seems like if they wanted to parallel Christianity can they please not beat me over the head with the message in the hopes that somehow I buy it? Oh and by the way, I would say this even if it was a parallel to being an atheist or any other religion, I am not just signalling out Christians.That and the CGI work for the most part looked awful at times. The best effect is the ones with magic but when it's meant to look real like when they said that their worst fear is and then a Sea Serpent materializes, it looked awful. I also didn't really like the effect of Dragon-Eustace either but Reepercheep looked okay.So I've played the bad guy on this movie, now onto what I liked. Well, the actors for the most part do pretty good jobs, there are certain scenes like Reepercheep visiting Aslan's country were well executed and for that matter I really liked Eustace's relationship with him. I mean yes, it could be expanded upon more but it does play out naturally as well as Eustace's story arc, probably the only one in the entire movie that does actually work for me.Like always though the cinematography is excellent. I thought the Dawn Treader ship is actually pretty well designed and I do like the animatronics in this movie like the Minotaur oh and while I did bash the CG work in this movie I do really like the effect of the painting coming to life and flooding them into Narnia. So while this is better then Prince Caspian, I still feel that there are a few things that need improvement.