The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader Review

• 7th Dec 2010

He gets a bit of stick, old Mr CS Lewis, for pushing his Christian beliefs through his literature. “Enjoy the propaganda,” said a friend as I pootled off to see the film adaptation of the third in the Narnia series: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.

But I’ll tell you what, the man tells a crackingly good story. Ships sailing stormy seas, kidnapping, magic, talking animals, sword fights, dragons battling with sea serpents, it’s all wonderful stuff. And this film, while turning the dial down a bit on the moralising, depicts his story well. It’s beautifully crafted and stunning to look at, the characters are well-rounded enough to love and the plot motors along tremendously.

In their third trip to Narnia the two youngest of the Pevensies, Lucy and Edmund, find themselves on yet another quest with their old mate Prince Caspian. Their older siblings are left behind, being too old to need Narnia any more apparently, and instead they have their annoyingly antagonistic cousin Eustace tagging along. They’re also reunited with the swashbuckling mouse Reepicheep (now delightfully played by Simon Pegg). And that’s it.

Yes, there’s a supporting cast of hundreds of sailors, magicians, deranged old lords, minotaurs and the like, but the core cast is kept nicely small, meaning each character has plenty of opportunity to develop.

CS Lewis, bless his cotton socks, was one of the few fantasy writers to consider the fact half his readership might possibly be female – and in Lucy we get an absolute gem of a leading lady. She’s clever, brave and caring, she fights alongside the lads, she’s not shy about voicing her opinion and she regularly saves the day. By no means is she a token sidekick. She made me want to cheer. Often.

Eustace is a nice addition to the team and his acerbic, grumpy narration in the form of diary entries throughout provides a wryness that prevents the film turning into a Narnian love-in.

There’s lots of lovely psychological stuff here too, as the crew of the Dawn Treader have to face their fears and temptations to defeat their rather abstract, misty enemy. Prince Caspian has father issues and Edmund needs to figure some things out as he emerges from the shadow of his older brother. Lucy yearns to be beautiful, at the expense of her other considerable good points, until Aslan reminds her to value herself in a scene that made this old feminist well up a bit.

Younger viewers have a fair bit to cope with in this film – their intelligence isn’t underestimated and they’re in no way condescended to. Yes, there’s a bit of schmaltz, but there are also a fair few edge-of-your-seat scary bits (particularly intense in 3D) and plenty of evidence of the darker side of human nature. The story, while following the fantasy formula, is reasonably complex. Kids will have more than a bit of popcorn to get their teeth into.

The fantasy genre has always been about good versus evil. So I’m not too bothered that the good guy in Narnia is Christ masquerading as a lion rather than, say, a wise old wizard or a Jedi knight. What little preaching he does do seems to be along the lines of being true to yourself, which seems fair enough, and frankly, if he’s telling girls like Lucy that there’s more to aspire to in life than being pretty, I don’t care whether you call him God, Aslan, Dumbledore or Obi-Wan – he’s all right with me.

Kathy Alys