The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

Directed by Michael Apted

(PG)

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The third Chronicles of Narnia film will make a lot of young moviegoers grateful that they still have Harry Potter, said Ty Burr in The Boston Globe. With four more books in C.S. Lewis’ Christian-tinged series to go, Narnia’s custodians still haven’t figured out a way to create screen suspense when its children stars “need only turn heavenward” any time they run into trouble. Aslan, the Christ-like talking lion they run with, still looks great, but he’s “hell on excitement.” This installment sends brother and sister Edmund and Lucy Pevensie to sea with a “chatterbox” cousin who’s new to the series, said Manohla Dargis in The New York Times. But they’re not sailing long before you’ll be hoping for a big storm to blow this dreary film and its troubled franchise “far, far away.” There’s “a business-like, barrel-ahead determination to the proceedings,” said Lisa Schwarzbaum in Entertainment Weekly. Forget fun: The series’ new director has succeeded only in making the drama more “wooden.” It feels as if everyone involved is merely “ticking off items on an agenda” until the end is finally here.