The next film of Movie Day was the Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, the third in the inconsistent series which follows the highly successful The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe and the less successful Prince Caspian. There has been considerable speculation as to why Prince Caspian was less successful than The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe however the answer is typified for me in an interview in Empire magazine with Will Poulter who plays the ever annoying Eustace in the film in which he states that his experience with the C.S Lewis series is that he “read the first book, but hasn’t read any of the others.” This is the truth of it, The Lion, The With and The Wardrobe is a book that everyone knows and loves but the rest of Lewis’ chronicles are less known and hardly loved – How many people actually know the name of the next book in the series (The Silver Chair) a few but I would guess not a great deal.
Anyway the film follows King Caspian (Played by Ben Barnes) who is joined in Narnia by Edmund and Lucy the two youngest of the Pevensie children and their cousin Eustace when the three children are submerged in water from a painting of the Dawn Treader. Caspian brings them all on board and as is usual in Narnia takes them on a quest and into great danger; the quest is to find the seven missing lords of Narnia who before Caspian became king (As seen in Prince Caspian) left for the islands out to the east. Caspian is accompanied on his quest by Reepicheep voiced in Prince Caspian by Eddie Izzard and now voiced by Simon Pegg as the director (Michael Apted) thought that Izzard’s voice was too mature to play the animated rat, who always reminds me of Puss in Boots from the Shrek series, but perhaps Izzard was simply too busy losing an election for Labour to reprise the role!
Obviously the quest does not go smoothly when as they arrive at the lonely island where they should be they find them deserted and so in true Narnian fashion King Caspian leaves all of his well armed seamen on the beach and heads into unknown dangers with just the three human children as support – Not entirely sure why all Narnians seem to think that the presence of a 15 year old girl beats a dozen armed men but that is just the way their society seems to work so who are we to argue. So with the completely useless Eustace left to keep guard (Seriously how did this guy get to be king) it is perhaps (not) surprising that that they are ambushed and taken captive by slave traders. This is all very fortunate as they are imprisoned long enough to view a woman separated from her family being sucked into a mysterious green smoke. I won’t bore you with the details but eventually they are saved by the army they brought with them and so head off to search for the citizens who were taken by the smoke.
The rest of the story is pretty normal fare with the ship following the path set out for them and all the time relying on the ability of a few children to save the world, a high feat indeed as one of them is the ever slap worthy Eustace, luckily however he is soon turned into a Dragon and so starts to become instantly likeable – A bit of a shock change as he goes from Selfish and annoying child to selfless and brave dragon in an instant which perhaps could have used a bit of fleshing out. The finale is a bit of an anticlimax although does have quite a nostalgic moment which reminded me of the end of Ghostbusters (not that there was any stream crossing.)
After the main story has finished there is a little bit hinting at the Christian nature of the Chronicles of Narnia subtext, I was actually very surprised that my companion to the cinema was not aware of the Christian message, In Which on being told she could not return to Narnia, Lucy asked if she will ever meet Aslan again, to which the talking Lion replies “That is why I bought you here, that to know me for a short while in this world will result in you knowing me for a long time in the other world.” She was therefore trying to work out who was supposed to be the Lion in another form before I revealed the connection to Jesus. (Coming Back in the first film and then transcending to another world etc..)
The ending does bring up an interesting point of continuity however as Edmund Played by Skandar Keynes aged 19 and Lucy Played by Georgie Henley aged 15 are informed that they have become to old to re-enter Narnia in the future, despite the fact that William Mosley (Peter) and Anna Popplewell (Susan) were 21 and 20 respectively during Prince Caspian. Aslan then tells Eustace that he may well visit Narnia again in the future (As he does in The Silver Chair) However Eustace is played by William Poulter who is two years older than Georgie but I guess that is probably just me getting too wrapped up in the detail.
Anyway the film follows King Caspian (Played by Ben Barnes) who is joined in Narnia by Edmund and Lucy the two youngest of the Pevensie children and their cousin Eustace when the three children are submerged in water from a painting of the Dawn Treader. Caspian brings them all on board and as is usual in Narnia takes them on a quest and into great danger; the quest is to find the seven missing lords of Narnia who before Caspian became king (As seen in Prince Caspian) left for the islands out to the east. Caspian is accompanied on his quest by Reepicheep voiced in Prince Caspian by Eddie Izzard and now voiced by Simon Pegg as the director (Michael Apted) thought that Izzard’s voice was too mature to play the animated rat, who always reminds me of Puss in Boots from the Shrek series, but perhaps Izzard was simply too busy losing an election for Labour to reprise the role!
Obviously the quest does not go smoothly when as they arrive at the lonely island where they should be they find them deserted and so in true Narnian fashion King Caspian leaves all of his well armed seamen on the beach and heads into unknown dangers with just the three human children as support – Not entirely sure why all Narnians seem to think that the presence of a 15 year old girl beats a dozen armed men but that is just the way their society seems to work so who are we to argue. So with the completely useless Eustace left to keep guard (Seriously how did this guy get to be king) it is perhaps (not) surprising that that they are ambushed and taken captive by slave traders. This is all very fortunate as they are imprisoned long enough to view a woman separated from her family being sucked into a mysterious green smoke. I won’t bore you with the details but eventually they are saved by the army they brought with them and so head off to search for the citizens who were taken by the smoke.
The rest of the story is pretty normal fare with the ship following the path set out for them and all the time relying on the ability of a few children to save the world, a high feat indeed as one of them is the ever slap worthy Eustace, luckily however he is soon turned into a Dragon and so starts to become instantly likeable – A bit of a shock change as he goes from Selfish and annoying child to selfless and brave dragon in an instant which perhaps could have used a bit of fleshing out. The finale is a bit of an anticlimax although does have quite a nostalgic moment which reminded me of the end of Ghostbusters (not that there was any stream crossing.)
After the main story has finished there is a little bit hinting at the Christian nature of the Chronicles of Narnia subtext, I was actually very surprised that my companion to the cinema was not aware of the Christian message, In Which on being told she could not return to Narnia, Lucy asked if she will ever meet Aslan again, to which the talking Lion replies “That is why I bought you here, that to know me for a short while in this world will result in you knowing me for a long time in the other world.” She was therefore trying to work out who was supposed to be the Lion in another form before I revealed the connection to Jesus. (Coming Back in the first film and then transcending to another world etc..)
The ending does bring up an interesting point of continuity however as Edmund Played by Skandar Keynes aged 19 and Lucy Played by Georgie Henley aged 15 are informed that they have become to old to re-enter Narnia in the future, despite the fact that William Mosley (Peter) and Anna Popplewell (Susan) were 21 and 20 respectively during Prince Caspian. Aslan then tells Eustace that he may well visit Narnia again in the future (As he does in The Silver Chair) However Eustace is played by William Poulter who is two years older than Georgie but I guess that is probably just me getting too wrapped up in the detail.
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