The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

So, Narnia. The basic principle appears to be that there's these kids who are terribly special for some reason, and whenever they need an important life lesson, they get dragged into a magical land where they will have an awfully big adventure which saves Narnia and teaches them something. This time, only Edmund and Lucy of the original four are conscripted, the other two now being too old, and presumably more interested in sex and alcopops. Joining them is their younger cousin Eustace. Edmund's problem is that he's too young to join the army and prove how brave he is. Lucy's problem is that she's noticed that her sister is the pretty one, whereas her Narnian title, "Lucy the Brave" is tantamount to "she's got a good personality". Eustace's problem is that he's a collosal arsehole. Edmund constantly rags him on this, apparently having conveniently forgotten that just two films ago he was selling out his own family to the bad guy in exchange for Turkish Delight. Hypocritical much, Edmund?

Anyway, they're pulled through a seascape painting and are rescued by the Dawn Treader (which is a ship), on which is Caspian (who is a king), who was apparently introduced in the last movie, which I didn't see. Caspian is mystified as to why our heroes have been summoned, as he believes everything in Narnia is peaceful and safe. It transpires, though, that he believes this because he sent seven lords with powerful magic swords to check everything was fine, and assumed that since none of them came back alive, that meant everything was fine. I can't quite decide whether this makes him a complete idiot, or excellent politician material. Or both. Cue a perilous quest to reclaim these seven swords, and use them to defeat the terrible evil that's been growing just off the edge of the map.

It's actually jolly good fun. The structure is that Jason and the Argonauts "go to island, defeat trial, find next destination, repeat until victory" plot, and that worked in Jason and the Argonauts, and works here too. It is specifically notable that you remember who all the ensemble cast are a lot better than in Clash of the Titans, so they're doing something right.

There's derring do, magical spells, deadly traps and fierce monsters. If that's not good enough for you, well, that's a failing in you, not the film. The three leads do a great job, particularly Will Poulter as Eustace, last seen as the amusingly scabby little kid in Son of Rambow, and has great fun here playing Eustace as such an amusingly stuck-up little tit that it's a great shame when his inevitable reform occurs.

It all wraps up with an overlong coda in which Aslan gets all mystical at them, heavily implies that he is in fact god, or at least Christ, and hey, who's going to argue with the fucking huge lion? That bit is one of the longest and most forced bits of cinema since the last twenty minutes of Return Of The King, where everybody laughs and gives each other big shiny hats, but everything up to that point is a blast. The children then emerge blinking into the real world, having grown as people, and we emerge blinking from the cinema reflecting that, having promised to take our nephews to the cinema as a Christmas treat, things could have gone a hell of a lot worse.