The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader Reviews
Top Critic
Not quite a must-see, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is nonetheless a sturdy outing with many of the charms that have become franchise trademarks.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/4
Could be an optical illusion, but it seems that a flat, dull movie shot in 3-D just looks flatter and duller.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/4
The visual splendor is still there, in moderate amounts.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2.5/4
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is still very much a "Narnia" movie. In other words, it's filled with fantastical creatures, bloodless battles, quasi-mystical undercurrents and an unfortunate helping of hooey.
Full Review
| Original Score: C
Despite some rejiggering of the book's plot, it's a film that should please Narnia fans and, if it does well, may lead to the return of Eustace in the next installment, The Silver Chair. Here's hoping.
Full Review
| Original Score: 4/5
The 3-D effects are standard, the children and the prince are a bit bland, and Michael Apted's direction veers into listlessness, but there is, at times, a pleasing elegance to the production, too. It doesn't assault you.
Full Review
| Original Score: B-
Only two characters are worth much notice; neither is a prince, and one is a really big mouse, which tells you something sad about Narnia's royal family.
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| Original Score: 2/4
Apted brings back a sense of the old-fashioned fun of the low-tech 1960s myths-and-monsters matinees, when no roiling sea ever failed to harbor a giant serpent -- and men stood in the bows of ships facing peril with chins of iron.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/4
Where the others aimed for greatness and missed, this one aims for middle-of-the-road and basically hits it.
Full Review
| Original Score: B-
This picture... mostly plays like a perfunctory cross between watered-down iterations of The Wind in the Willows and any Pirates of the Caribbean movie...
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/5
Dawn Treader, the name of the ship in the story, should here be rechristened Yawn Treader.
Discerning young people aren't likely to find Dawn Treader very challenging or engaging and the accompanying adults are certain to find it pretty bland fare...
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/4
A decent family adventure, perfectly suited to a cold Saturday morning -- and likely to be forgotten by Sunday.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/5
Oh, there are sword fights aplenty (as bloodless as ever), but instead of a real story, we are left clinging to individual moments.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2.5/5
What kid hasn't dreamed of being a queen or king in another world?
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/4
Unfortunately, between its ripsnorting beginning and moving finale, Apted's film sails into the doldrums.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2.5/4
The beguiling creature design -- from minotaur to dragon, sea serpent to one-footed dwarf -- and 3D effects heighten the illusion of a storybook coming alive.
Provides rousing enough young family entertainment - though there's less to engage maturer Lewis fans and possible disappointment for older teenagers.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/5
Except for a few familiar faces, the uninspired, desperate-looking The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader doesn't bear much resemblance to its predecessors.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/4
This is a rip-snorting adventure fantasy for families, especially the younger members who are not insistent on continuity.
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| Original Score: 3/4
This retelling of "Dawn Treader" is relentlessly goal-oriented -- our heroes must collect seven swords, and free a bunch of people imprisoned in mysterious green mist -- in a way Lewis' book simply isn't.
The "quest" element, a common fantasy staple, is uninspired and perfunctory, and there's a growing sense throughout the movie that there's no real point to any of what is occurring.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/4
The best thing about the film is neither the top-notch CGI nor the shallow moral lessons but the performance of Will Poulter as Lucy and Edmund's insufferable cousin Eustace Scrubb.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/5
There's a businesslike, barrel-ahead determination to the proceedings, as if the players (and, in the bigger picture, the producers) were ticking off items on an agenda: three volumes down, four to go if Walden Media commits to the whole shebang.
Full Review
| Original Score: C
Apted gives it little sense of scope or purpose; everything feels perfunctory as in a bad video game.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/5
This f/x-heavy third adaptation of the Christian-themed fantasy series feels routine and risk-averse in every respect, as if investment anxiety had fatally hobbled its sense of wonder.
It's good to see the spirit of English craftsmanship alive, even if applied to ephemeral effects.
This tedious third entry doesn't bode well for the continuation of the franchise.
