Rock The Boat! (Not.)

I will never love again.


You hear that?


Yeah... that was the sound of my heart breaking. Not a pleasant sound.


So I waited 550-some days for the premiere of the newest installation of the Narnia films: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. It was a dramatic 550 days! Disney dropped the franchise. Fox picked it up. Goodbye Andrew Adamson (*tears up*), hello random-guy-I-forget-your-name-but-you-are-most-definitely-NOT-Andrew. (Andrew directed, BTW.) And worst of all: NO. MORE. HARRY. GREGSON-WILLIAMS. That was a blow. Now they have this random dude who isn't nearly half as cool. And Reepicheep's voice was different! :*( But I kept my hopes up and did not despair! And then they decided to take a hatchet to my childhood memories.


I showed up at the theater with my best friend, my best friend's little brother (who is also now one of my absolute best friends), their mother, and my little sister. We sat together in the movie theater, waiting for the film to begin and for their dad to show up, when out of the blue THEIR COUSINS SHOWED UP. And I LOVE their cousins! (Who are also some of my best friends. ^_^) I nearly died of a heart attack (and only to have my heart torn to bits within the next hour and a half...)! Anyways, we all managed to settle down and get ready for the film. Now, before I describe the slaughter, here's the official pitch.

Voyage of the Dawn Treader

Upon returning to Narnia to join Prince Caspian for a voyage on the majestic royal vessel known as The Dawn Treader, Lucy, Edmund, and their cousin Eustace encounter merfolk, dragons, dwarves, and a wandering band of lost warriors. As the edge of the world draws near, their remarkable adventure at sea sails toward an exciting, yet uncertain, conclusion.

My Rating: -999,999,999 stars outta 5 (<--- That was slightly melodramatic. From a normal movie standpoint, maybe a 1. From my perspective? Quadruple the aforementioned numeric value, then multipy by infinity.)

My Review: Fox was given the opportunity to make something great. VDT was a well-written book, with loads of action, adventure, and character developement. Anyone who ever read Narnia knows that. But the movie... it was a piece of crap. Why? I'm just getting started.

~ The plot and storyline. Most certainly not in the book. Besides that, it was an awful change. Come on... 'The Green Mist'? Wow. Classy, original, beautiful animation... It was like I was THERE. (I'm rolling my eyes here.) I honestly still don't understand what happened. Something about swords (all of which just magically seemed to fall into people's hands), temptation and all that fun stuff. Except that it wasn't fun. It was confusing and NOT what C.S. Lewis would have wanted.

~ The script itself. The dialogue was beyond awful! It was all forced, all choppy, and the characters all missed the mark. Georgie Henley and Skandar Keynes struggled to not drown in the absolute mediocrity of it all, and the only one who did a decent job was Will Poulter, who was at least provided with a few good lines. Reepicheep was all wrong. Ben Barnes didn't even have a Spanish accent, so I guess Prince Caspian must have been hanging out with a bunch of Brits while we were out of Narnia.

~ The music. It suffered. They didn't even salvage the theme from the first two, making the third film feel entirely disconnected from the series. The original theme was only used once or twice, and the new music was so basic that it was like it wasn't even there. It added nothing to the film.

~ The petty fan details. I'm dreading 'The Silver Chair'. Why? Because I know Fox will make it all wrong. Right at the end, when I started to feel the slightest tidbit of emotion, it was ruined. Why? Because of Jill Pole. Don't get me wrong, Jill Pole is awesome, but there it would have been a cold day in hell before Jill Pole would ever visit Eustance Clarence Scrubb previous to The Silver Chair. "Eustace, Jill Pole is here to see you!" *throws dart at movie screen* Ramandu's daughter was a flirt, and reduced Caspian and Edmund to animals. Ramandu wasn't even in the film!!! Random characters were thrown in and pulled out, and it was unclear who was who. Looking back on the movie, I don't remember what even happened...

~ The characterization. I hate to say it but... Georgie and Skandar failed. So did Ben. Ugh. The script gave them nothing, so they struggled to stay afloat. Not to mention that Aslan went from being the epitome of awesome to being a pathetic plot device who was thrown around like a rag doll...

~ The philosophy. This is what gets me going... C.S. Lewis would have hated this movie because it was a complete failure when it came to its themes. Evil was relative in this film: it only existed if you felt like believing in it. It was easy to conquer and never truly materialized or had an effect besides the occasional encounter with temptation. Everything was relative, and C.S. Lewis would have HATED THAT. First off, Lucy was not as obsessed with her beauty in the book. Her random flirt fest with Caspian was bizarre. Second: Reep, stop giving advice to Eustace. You're making it look like this crappy writing is all C.S. Lewis's fault. Stop teaching us wrong. And third: the absolute worst, worst detail that absolute drove me insane was during the big battle scene. The first movie's battle cry of "For Narnia! And for Aslan!" has become world famous. There was a major point in the second film concerning the importance of Aslan (and God) in one's life. Peter is not able to win the battle, much less conquer his faults, when he only cries out for Narnia. The next battle, he announces Aslan's name, and they are victorious. In the new film, there was hardly any mention of Aslan, and He was taken out from the battle cry.

I would not recommend this film unless you're desperate and you've never read the books. Let's just say that my best friend and her mother came out of the theater in tears, because the end of the film had pictures of the book and they couldn't believe that their favorite book had just been butchered. All of my other companions said it was decent and they enjoyed it, but agreed it was poorly written. The decision is yours.