Movie Review: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

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.

Movie Review: Megamind

Have seen a great many films recently as we had an entire day to catch up with the ones we had previously missed, So again it look like the next three articles will be film related (I do have other interests honest.)
First up in Chronological order is MegaMind this cartoon features the vocal talents of Will Ferrell with Brad Pitt as the supporting star (Brad Pitt supporting Will Ferrell – Hollywood has really gone mad!) The film is yet another evil genius turned good (Universal’s Despicable Me being another example) but being from Dream Works you are pretty much guaranteed that there will be a few laughs – although once again it would appear that Dream Works have looked to invest their budget in big name voices.

Megamind is the Blue coloured super genius who strikes up an early rivalry (From 8 days old) with Pitts Superman clone Metro Man when their planets are sucked up by a black hole and both are sent to earth to fulfil their destiny, Where Metro Man falls serendipitously into the mansion of a wealthy family his ship forces Megamind to crash in a Prison for the criminally gifted and so it would seem that their roles are set, to battle the causes of Good and Evil in intricate plans some of which Metro Man wins, others Megamind almost wins until almost by chance Mega Mind wins and is actually able to defeat Metro Man and so take over Metro City as the evil overlord – however soon a new threat emerges to attack Metro City and Megamind is called upon to become a hero – Can he answer the call? – of cause he can, I am sure that this isn’t a spoiler as if you didn’t see where this was going then this cartoon may be a bit to intense for you. Anyway the story aside, which is a very predictable by the numbers movie (It is after all a cartoon) the test of a cartoon these days is “are there enough laughs to make the film interesting to the Parents as well as the kids?” The answer is probably Yes, although as is often the case with these things there were not many laugh out loud moments and it is reasonably difficult to remember them afterwards.

The main selling point of this film however is the voice talent and the visual scale with Metro City being carefully recreated by Dream Works which they clearly hope will be able to cover the inefficiencies in the plot and the lack of originality, I have read a review stating that the Film is not as funny as you would expect from a Will Farrell movie, which I disagree with however I have never been a Will Farrell fan as I find that I struggle to ever feel sympathy for the “idiot” character that he usually plays and so actually found the change of pace to the more cerebral, but luckless Megamind actually a much better fit with the comedy I enjoy.

Champions league draw, again

Well I was told that Spurs would never make it to the champions league, then I was told that we would be lucky to qualify, next came the certain fact that we would not qualify from our "group of death."
You can imagine how happy I am then to be waiting for the draw for the knock out stage of the competition, there are not a lot of easy teams left at this stage so anyone we get will of cause be tough, our opponents will be out of the second placed teams - not including Arsenal or Inter Milan - so it will be out of: Roma, AC Milan, Lyon, Copenhagen or Marseille. Of these I guess I would like Copenhagen and dislike AC Milan - although our last visit to Milan was definitely an interesting event.
I am very glad we finished top of our group however as things look a lot worse for Arsenal who will be travelling to Germany or Spain to face one of: Barcelona, Real Madrid, Bayern Munich or FC Schalke. So I guess they will be hoping for Schalke but they are by no means an easy team, and I do not really understand Arsene Wenger's assertion that they don't fear Barcelona as they were beaten so badly last year, but I guess that's his job.

Anyway onto the draw:

We got AC Milan in what I am sure is the game of the round, at least no one can say we did it the easy way, the strategy should be to try and keep 11 men on the pitch there and then destroy them at home, it has worked so far.
Other games
Roma vs Shakhtar
Valencia vs Schalke
Inter vs Munich (so arsenal are going to Spain.)
Man Utd vs Marseille
Barcelona vs Arsenal - repeat of last year
Chelsea vs Copenhagen
Real Madrid vs Lyon
So not a great draw for spurs, but at least it is worse for Arsenal.

Harry Potter, The Deathly Hallows and the badly managed Plot

This week we went to see Harry Potter and the deathly hallows part one. I have to admit that I read the book simply as I had read all of the others, it is often said that the books become ever darker as the series continues however I would probably say that it felt more bogged down as the series continued and what is often considered depth is in fact simply over populated plot strings. This, for me, all culminated in a very, the best word I can think of here is boring, 1st half of the final book. This first half in my opinion should have been left out altogether in the movie (it could have been handled better with a five minute background scene.) Instead the fear of the ending of one, if not the, highest earning, franchises made them see fit to make it a stand alone movie.

The film starts with an overly active first set piece in which they rescue Harry and are attacked by the Death Eaters - Always reminds me of a gang of 12 year old wanna be gangsters - It then descends into a seemingly endless set up of staring, moping and sulking which seems to last endlessly and use up considerable amounts of the good will towards these characters who have been the main stay of English Cinema for the best part of a decade.

There are a couple of cringe worthy scenes, not least an impromptu, in appropriate and untimely dance sequence between Harry and Hermione which was as ungainly in it's delivery as it was superfluous to the plot. The plot is overly twisted and convoluted whilst at the same time being shallow to the point of confusing what is going on, There are so many quests all happening at once with the search for the Horcruxes that contain the soul of Voldemort as well as details of the Deathly Hallows - three magical instruments that can give the owner the power over death itself - however these details seem to be thrown in at the last minute to justify the films title, finally in case the search for these 8 items was not enough to confuse they decide the flow of the narrative is best served by throwing in a search for the Sword of Griffindor!

There are of cause some very good performances, after all the main protagonists have had 7 years experience and Helena Bonam Carter always gives a great performance as the demented Bellatrix.

Still I am happy to say that I infinitely preferred the second half of the book to the first so perhaps we may find that splitting it into two halves will leave a really great movie to close out the series, this one however in set ups for a final showstopper this movie was more Matrix Reloaded than Empire Strikes Back.

Student Tuition Fees

As the country prepares for more civil unrest from the nations students I thought I would blog my views on the subject of tuition fees. (Although I doubt anyone will care.)

Anyway, My opinion on this is that why should Students not pay for their own education? surely if someone is to pay it should be the person who benefits? that is just common sense. I have a degree in Politics and Government which I did to improve myself, why should anyone else pay for this? It is my life, my higher earning potential, my cost!

I did not go into the degree thinking the country owed me the right to study, I also worked full time whilst I was studying to keep my bills paid. For some reason though a lot of these Students seem to think that as the country needs doctors they are doing the country a favour; I wounder how many people would be going through Medschool if the wage of a Doctor was capped to Average Wage? perhaps that is what the students would prefer - all jobs to have the same pay level - I would wager that many of the popular courses today would be empty in no time.

Also it is not as if Student debt is real debt, real debt is relentless, it doesn't wait for you to be able to afford it. I have had real debt issues and managed them whilst earning below 10k a year, so I am hard pressed to feel sympathy for those who complain that they will have debt on twice that amount.

My last point on this is that, as seems to be known to everyone outside of Student populations and Government, There are too many people going to university, this is again as it is considered a right not a privilege, a privilege that should not be based on wealth, but on ability, but a privilege none the less.

A night of good results

As if Tottenham topping the group was not good enough Last night was also the night that Crawley Town booked their place in the Third Round thanks to two goals by Smith and an Own goal seeing off ten man Swindon in the Second round replay.

Crawley went 1-0 up thanks to Smith before finding themselves pegged back to 2-1 by the League opposition who were then reduced to ten men before an unfortunate own goal forced Extra Time, it was not until 28 minutes into the extra half hour that Smith struck again sending the Blue Square premier outfit through for the first time in their history.

So now they march onwards, however Championship Derby who will be visiting the Broadfield on the 8th January will be a different prospect altogether, but now is a time for celebration.

Tottenham top group of death

The group stage of Tottenham's first champions league campaign ended last night and, despite what I was assured by a Chelsea fan after the draw, Tottenham did not get shown just how out of their depth they are but ended up winning the group and in the process beating the German, Dutch and European champions - not a bad little run.

Whilst it is true that it was not an easy run - 4-0 down against Inter, losing 2 goal lead against Breman - in the end most pundits agree we were the best in the group.

The game last night really summed up our away campaign with letting the lead slip 3 times, the game started in comical fashion with the Twente keeper having a nightmare to watch a simple back pass bounce past his foot for Spurs' opener.

Twente were soon back in it however after the Referee gave a penalty, now I would obviously disagree with the decision whatever it was but this was a very soft decision with the spurs defender punished simply for the human instinct for protection, however as the next goal was the result of an even worse decision by the Referee there is not too much point in dwelling on it.

Tottenham re-took the lead through a quite sublime piece of link up play between Defoe and Lennon which showed a little of what we have missed in his absence before the ref struck again to level the game, this time a free kick outside the box to penalize Lennon for laying a hand on the shoulder of a man around 2 foot taller than himself.
Bad refereeing aside however the free kick was top class so no complaints there.

The Twente keeper who, apart from the first goal, had a pretty good game was unfortunate again for the third spurs goal as he produced a wonderful save from Palacios which fell into the path of the ever alert Defoe to do what he does best. However Twente struck back again with their first goal not directly from a bad refereeing decision (there was a touch in between the free kick and the goal) this was again a greatly taken goal and really showed how good a team Twente are,

Obviously I do feel slightly annoyed at the part the Referee played in the goals but he was not finished yet, after a Twente player went down in the box (which to be fair he should have been booked for as he went down for a tackle that never came.) The Referee, correctly told Tottenham to play on, only to bring play to a stop as Lennon was running in full stride towards the Twente goal. But the fact that the Ref seems to think that his role is to shape the game, should not be held against Twente who did well to capitalize on his vanity. so it ended 3-3 but with Inter losing to Bremen Spurs still top their group, so mixed feelings on the result but the achievements are still massive for a Champions League debut, as an aside spurs became the first team to score two goals in every game in the group stage, now if we can stop letting them in then the future looks very bright indeed.