It was nice while it lasted. The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is the Narnia adaptation I had initially feared (and which the first two films had avoided being): a blandly crowd-pleasing fantasy film that panders to the Christian market while simultaneously tiptoeing around it. While the previous movies were imbued with the intricate themes of Narnia author C.S. Lewis – not only good and evil, but how we’re made up of both – Dawn Treader is a childish morality play with simple lessons about stealing and jealousy and the like. Christian audiences will applaud; non-Christian ones won’t feel their feathers ruffled a bit. Any artfulness, however, is gone. Dawn Treader opens with siblings Edmund (Skandar Keynes) and Lucy (Georgie Henley) still in London during World War II, living with a snotty cousin named Eustace (Will Poulter). When a painting of a ship at sea suddenly comes to life, all three are washed into the world of Narnia, which is once again in need of their heroics. What follows is a dutiful series of adventure motifs as the trio joins Prince Caspian (Ben Barnes) on a quest to explore a series of islands and retrieve seven golden swords. A lot happens, but the movie never achieves a true sense of wonder (the subpar special effects don’t help). The true disappointment, however, is that this Narnia installment is reductive of Lewis, at best. From director Michael Apted, who offered a far more nuanced take on Christianity in Amazing Grace.
