Lucy (Georgie Henley) and Edmund Penevsie
(Skandar Keynes) are taken back to Narnia (along with their annoying cousin Eustace), and take a voyage on the Dawn
Treader with King Caspian (Ben Barnes). Their mission is to find the lost seven lords with seven magical swords (given
to them to them by Aslan). I know it kinda sounds like Seven Brides For Seven Brothers (wait, wrong movie- back to the
review). They find the swords one by one as they race to stop an evil green mist which is taking people.
THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: THE VOYAGE OF THE DAWN TREADER is a fun adventure. Yet
it doesn't have the depth of characterization of the first two films. I feel Caspian was more of a fleshed
out character in the previous film where I am also missing Susan Pevensie (who is only shown briefly in this film).
Aslan is laid thick as a God type figure and the land where his people are is something you
can easily say might be Heaven. THE VOYAGE OF THE DAWN TREADER is more of a Christian type film than the
first two films. I do think they lay on the Christian ideology a little too thick this time even if it is
cloaked in the mythology of Narnia. I just felt the first two films could balance the ideas C.S. Lewis brought from
his own life as a Christian with the story of Narnia. I just wish they developed the characters more where Caspian
and Reepicheep feel a little less fleshed out this time. Still the VOYAGE
OF THE DAWN TREADER is a fun adventure for the whole family and fantasy fans even though it doesn't match up to
the first two films.
SPECIAL FEATURES:
The single disc DVD features four deleted scenes and the
audio commentary for the film with Director Michael Apted and Producer Mark Johnson. They provide an in-depth
commentary on the making of the movie.
The Blu-ray has additional extras (with some being
included on the bonus disc on the 2-disc DVD version on sale at Best Buy). King Caspian narrates an interactive
tour of the Dawn treader while several short featurettes talk about the places and characters in the film (with clips from
the film). THE UNTOLD ADVENTURES OF THE DAWN TREADER is an animated short told in book drawning form showing what
happened between PRINCE CASPIAN and this film.
Also on the Blu-ray are three Behind-the-Scenes featurettes
including BATTLE ON THE SEA which shows how they built the dawn treader set and used it in the film for various sequences
requiring stunt work. Then you have small segments from the FOX MOVIE CHANNEL which are in Pip mode and appear very
small on my laptop screen (up in the corner of the screen and i find it very annoying).
The Extras menu is like a map of the various islands
in the film and you click on them to reveal various menus to certain extras. I find this type of Extras menu to
be fun.
FINAL ANALYSIS: THE VOYAGE OF THE DAWN
TREADER is a fun entry in THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA series despit it being a lesser entry not as good as the first two.
the Blu-ray menu system is great and the extras provide some enlightment for fans of the film.
