Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of The Dawn Treader (2010)

And so, the legacy of Narnia comes to a close. Well, we have got 4 more books to adapt, but everything you loved about the previous Narnia films has evaporated, leaving a half-hearted attemp at fantasy. For a start, Peter and Susan have left (as anyone who's seen Prince Caspien will know) and have been replaced by Eustace, officially the uglyest child on this planet. He just hates everything to do with Narnia and is about as much use as Ashley Graham. It's not just new characters that are the problem either, it's the old ones too. Remember Reepicheep, the sassy mouse assassin from Prince Caspien? How could you forget? Well, now he's the jolly Englishman who has tales of glorious adventures from across the world. What happened to the ninja mouse we knew? The setting also suffers from too much change.Narnia's gone all Wind Waker for this outing, with the action being set on the bland and repetitive Dawn Treader or the islands of the Great Sea. These islands feel like a step backwards though. We've come from Renaissance, Assassins Creed 2 castles to the orange looking stone streets of Assassins Creed 1. All this seems to have been filmed by some randomers off the street with their home video cameras from 1998 too. Now some of you might think this is the worst thing since Spiderman started to wear eyeliner. Not quite the case. The addition of more weird and wonderful creatures combined with a God of War style Sea Serpant fight, goes some way towards making up for its mistakes. Voyage of the Dawn Treader would easily get a higher rating if it weren't for its daunting legacy of the beautiful Prince Caspien. And so, when it tries to imitate the leaving-Narnia-forever ending, it doesn't have the same effect. I tried to feel sad when Lucy closed the door to her childhood fantasy land, but instead felt annoyed that subsequent films will have Eustace as the star, no doubt along with a needlessly cheesy Reepicheep. The REAL end to Narnia just falls too short of its untouchable predecessors.