Eustace Joins His Cousins for High Seas Adventure in Voyage of the Dawn Treader

Back in 2005, Walden Media released The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, the first in a series of adaptations of C. S. Lewis’s classic seven-book fantasy series. Last year saw the release of the third installment, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, which takes place roughly 1300 years Narnia time after the first installment and just a few short years after the second.

Lucy Pevensie (Georgie Henley), who was the first of her siblings to discover the magical world of Narnia and whose connection remains the strongest, returns with her brother Edmund (Skandar Keynes), this time via a painting instead of a wardrobe. The painting of a magnificent ship on the high seas hangs on the wall in the bedroom of their younger cousin Eustace Clarence Scrubb (Will Poulter), an insufferable prat who finds his cousins’ tales of Narnia tedious. While Lucy and Edmund are overjoyed to be whisked away to Narnia and revel in the reunion with several old friends, particularly the youthful King Caspian (Ben Barnes) and the valiant mouse Reepicheep (Simon Pegg), Eustace, swept up along with them, feels he has wandered into a nightmare from which he simply cannot awaken.

Michael Apted, new to the Narnia helm, directs this film, which has a rather episodic feel to it. While I’ve read Dawn Treader a couple of times, it’s been nearly a decade since the last time, and I decided to keep my memory fuzzy in order to avoid purist irritation as much as possible. The movie certainly does deviate from the book in several significant ways, but since there were several parts I didn’t remember too clearly, I wasn’t that focused on what was changed.

The movie does put added emphasis on Lucy’s awakening adolescence – mostly, it seems, for the purpose of incorporating Anna Popplewell as her older sister Susan. The film also adds a young stowaway who looks up to Lucy. There’s a decent message in there about being your own person and not living in the shadow of an older sibling; Edmund mirrors Lucy’s struggles to a lesser degree with Peter (William Moseley), who, like Susan, is not involved in the adventure but appears in a dream sequence.

Another prominent addition is a creepy green mist that follows Caspian and his crew everywhere. It reminds me of the Nothing in The Never-Ending Story, an evil force that sucks the life and joy out of everything it touches, but its effects are specific to each person, presenting dark temptations to otherwise virtuous characters. Its presence adds a prevalent sense of danger and, along with the search for the seven swords of the seven lords who sailed away from Narnia years earlier, serves as a glue holding the separate adventures together, but I’m not entirely sold on it.

What’s especially disappointing about the movie is how little involvement Aslan (Liam Neeson) has. Granted, the great lion always spends a majority of each novel out of sight, but his presence, or at least his absence, is always deeply felt. Here, one almost forgets about him for long stretches of time. When he appears, he makes an impression, but he does so very seldom, and a particularly powerful scene from the book gets such short shrift that you might almost blink and miss it in the midst of the epic sea battle with which the event alternates. While I was pleased with Aslan’s final appearance in the film and how much of his dialogue from the end of the book remained intact, I did not like how that crucial earlier scene played out.

The scene involves Eustace, who, despite all the movie’s special effects and rollicking adventure, is really the best thing the movie has going for it. Poulter is deliciously irritating as this stiff, disagreeable child who has petulance down to a fine art. Yet in the midst of his obnoxious behavior, one also can’t help feeling sorry for him. Practical Eustace, an intelligent young man with a mind for science, can’t wrap his head around the wonders before him. But does anybody bother to bring him up to speed? Not really. They make gentle jabs at his confusion and cowardice instead of taking the time to help him make the transition. Even Lucy, who I adore for her compassionate spirit, does little to put him at ease. He’s a sheltered, wimpy boy who’s been thrust into a world that doesn’t make sense full of people and creatures who don’t much like him. In the movie, he feels more like a vulnerable victim, and his lashing out feels more understandable.

One of my favorite elements of the movie is the use of Eustace’s diary as both narrative device and character exploration. We really get into his head here through his funny, eloquent journal entries, which Poulter reads with such fervor in voiceovers. I also loved the slow development of his relationship with Reepicheep, a character who is at once noble and comical. Eustace despises the sword-wielding rodent from the first, but the persistent Reepicheep gradually earns his respect and even friendship. Pegg brings the perfect balance of humor and depth to the voice work, and the mouse is well animated so that he seems very realistic.

The only trouble is that while Eustace’s transformation is as central to the film as to the book, in the movie it seems to come about mostly as a result of Reepicheep’s mentorship rather than Aslan. For the third time, the most compelling relationship in the movie is with one of the children and an unusual Narnian being – not with the lion who is central to the series and the only character to appear in all seven novels. First Tumnus, then Trumpkin and now Reepicheep steal the show. Moreover, while he does display annoying behavior, Eustace’s journey seems to be less one of letting go of self-centeredness and more one of embracing self-confidence. It changes the dynamic of his character and, again, lessens the emphasis on Aslan’s transformative power.

As with the previous installments, those who have read the books will find plenty to grumble about but also a lot to celebrate. While I don’t agree with all of the decisions made by Apted and screenwriters Christopher Markus, Stephen McFeely and Michael Petroni, I still found it an engaging adventure and was encouraged by the fact that the final moments foreshadow not one but two sequels. That those sequels will be made is not set in stone, but if the opportunity arises to visit Narnia on the big screen once again, you can bet I’ll be on board for the voyage.