This is the third film (though based on the fifth of C.S. Lewis’s Narnia novels), so I guess it had to be in 3-D. Visually, it’s fairly well done. But most of the characters are still two-dimensional. An exception is Lucy, who is the youngest, though actress Georgie Henley, who plays her is noticeably older than in the other two films. She is here the most prominent character, entering Narnia with her older brother, Edmund, and a new character, detested cousin Eustace. Obnoxious, haughty, and disbelieving (skepticism is not a virtue in Lewis’s world), he functions as comic relief for the first half of the film, sharing that function with Reepicheep, the talking, fencing mouse voiced by Simon Pegg. Of the several other new characters, they are much less memorable than the ones in the other two films, and their appearances are briefer. The other major character who returns is Caspian (Ben Barnes). As the title character of the previous film, he had a lot more to do, though. For the purposes of this film, to say that he is the brave, young, and wise ruler of Narnia is to say all that needs to be said. As for the other two Pevensie children, they make only token appearances.
All in all, this was the weakest of the three films. The first, built around the children’s discovery of Narnia and the task of unfreezing it, and the second, centering on an epic battle, were satisfyingly cohesive in a way that this was not, even if it’s shorter. I have not read the novels, so my reaction is not based on that, but for the first time I felt in watching that the story was clearly culled from a larger work. Themes and events whiz by, never to be revived. Yes, everyone is supposed to be searching for magic swords to free some people entrapped by a magic mist, but truly, this is a pretty boring uniting theme, since neither the mist nor the swords have significant stories behind them (in the movie version). Could be also I just don’t care for movies about random magic objects. Maybe that’s why I thought the Lord of the Rings trilogy was so overrated. Perhaps too the lack of input by Andrew Adamson, who directed and cowrote the first two movies, is missed. (Michael Apted helmed this one.) It reminded me a little of the last Pirates of the Caribbean movies, where they just keep wandering from one setting to another, but nothing seemed really to happen. It’s not as dull as that, nor as misguided as the last of the Austin Powers movies, or of the Spy Kids franchise (also in 3-D), but does help make the case that when it comes to film series, the third time is not always the charm.
IMDB link
viewed at Rave UPenn (PFS screening) and reviewed 12/2/10
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