This third adaptation from C.S. Lewis' seven-volume Chronicles of Narnia comes underwritten by a new studio and with a new director, Michael Apted.
The war has ground on, and Edmund and Lucy (Skandar Keynes and Georgie Henley), the two youngest Pevensie children, are considerably grown up. They're sequestered with an aunt in Cambridge, where they share a house with awful cousin Eustace (Will Poulter), who mocks their talk of Narnia.
Scarcely has the scene been set when a portal between worlds gobbles the children up. Eustace's unbelief washes away as they surface in aquamarine waters off the bow of the Narnian Navy's good ship, Dawn Treader. Aboard, Edmund and Lucy reunite with Caspian (Ben Barnes), and together they plot a course through the unknown Eastern Seas to World's End, on a mission to stop malevolent forces.
The great cameraman Dante Spinotti shot Dawn Treader, and he must share credit with a legion of technicians for its sumptuous look. But Apted seems to think like an old-hand action director and not enough like the boy who probably read Lewis' book. Relationships don't quite flourish, and the travails of a CGI dragon upstage the human element. This is the difference between a classic and a successful franchise reboot.
