Turns out the third and possibly last movie of the Narnia series is the best. Directed by the very, very versatile Michael Apted, this film was quick paced and only noticeably slowed down in one spot. Fortunately that slow down occurred toward the end of the film.
The Chronicles of Narnia was written by C. S. Lewis and along with the previous two high budget movies from Disney told the story of the four Pevensie children as they discovered the land of Narnia and restored Prince Caspian to his throne. The problem was that the last movie, Prince Caspian: The Return to Narnia, was a box office failure for Disney, who had hoped that the Narnia stories would rival Harry Potter. As a result of the failure, Disney walked away from future projects. Fortunately, 20th Century-Fox stepped up, and with a smaller budget and fewer special effects, delivered a story with plenty of action. It’s a movie that a parent could take a young child to without fear of scaring their kid to death.
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is the last Narnia story to feature any of the Pevensie children and serves to introduce the hero of the next in the story series, Eustace Scrubb. Whether Dawn Treader is the coda of the series or beginning of a new 20th Century-Fox series of Narnia films is not really relevant. This was a good and pleasant film and is a fine send off to a very good film series.
