Narnia - The Voyage Of The Dawn Treader

Title: Narnia - The Voyage Of The Dawn Treader

Year: 2010

Running Time: 113 minutes

Director: Michael Apted

Cast: Ben Barnes (Caspian), Skandar Keynes (Edmund), Georgie Henley (Lucy)

Notes: Won one award.

Rating: 8

Thoughts:   Lucy and Edmund return to Narnia, with their cousin Eustace. They join Caspian as he explores the seas and they go on an epic journey.

Of the "popular" Narnia tales, this was probably my favourite. Unfortunately, that isn't quite the film we see.

As before the cast does well,and the children are especially good as they grow older. The script has plenty of pace to it, and the story in itself is good. But it deviates too far from the book.

For me, there is too much effort to make this a bridging story. That isn't needed, the children are the bridge. But here they have vague links to both Lion and the yet to be filmed Silver Chair.

It's all so unnecessary as the base story is so strong, but that too is largely discarded. It looks nice and probably stands up as a story on its own. Sadly too many characters lack enough depth.

Fortunately, two performances stand out, Lucy (again) and Eustace. That was good news as that character was to be at the heart of the next film.

I have very mixed feelings about this one. It's decent enough but there is an imbalance in the character depictions.