The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of The Dawn Treader: Critic Reviews

There's a businesslike, barrel-ahead determination to the proceedings, as if the players (and, in the bigger picture, the producers) were ticking off items on an agenda: three volumes down, four to go if Walden Media commits to the whole shebang.

So vivid are many of Lewis's tableaux that you are barely given time to linger before being whisked on to the next.

It's serviceable, but certainly not much fun.

It's great to be back in Narnia.

It's good to see the spirit of English craftsmanship alive, even if applied to ephemeral effects.

A decent family adventure, perfectly suited to a cold Saturday morning -- and likely to be forgotten by Sunday.

The visual splendor is still there, in moderate amounts.

Despite some rejiggering of the book's plot, it's a film that should please Narnia fans and, if it does well, may lead to the return of Eustace in the next installment, The Silver Chair. Here's hoping.

Not quite a must-see, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is nonetheless a sturdy outing with many of the charms that have become franchise trademarks.

This picture... mostly plays like a perfunctory cross between watered-down iterations of The Wind in the Willows and any Pirates of the Caribbean movie...

This is a rip-snorting adventure fantasy for families, especially the younger members who are not insistent on continuity.

The beguiling creature design -- from minotaur to dragon, sea serpent to one-footed dwarf -- and 3D effects heighten the illusion of a storybook coming alive.

Unfortunately, between its ripsnorting beginning and moving finale, Apted's film sails into the doldrums.

What kid hasn't dreamed of being a queen or king in another world?

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is still very much a "Narnia" movie. In other words, it's filled with fantastical creatures, bloodless battles, quasi-mystical undercurrents and an unfortunate helping of hooey.

The best thing about the film is neither the top-notch CGI nor the shallow moral lessons but the performance of Will Poulter as Lucy and Edmund's insufferable cousin Eustace Scrubb.

This f/x-heavy third adaptation of the Christian-themed fantasy series feels routine and risk-averse in every respect, as if investment anxiety had fatally hobbled its sense of wonder.

Apted brings back a sense of the old-fashioned fun of the low-tech 1960s myths-and-monsters matinees, when no roiling sea ever failed to harbor a giant serpent -- and men stood in the bows of ships facing peril with chins of iron.

A worthy challenger to the far more popular Harry Potter pictures.

Discerning young people aren't likely to find Dawn Treader very challenging or engaging and the accompanying adults are certain to find it pretty bland fare...

Where the others aimed for greatness and missed, this one aims for middle-of-the-road and basically hits it.

Could be an optical illusion, but it seems that a flat, dull movie shot in 3-D just looks flatter and duller.

This retelling of "Dawn Treader" is relentlessly goal-oriented -- our heroes must collect seven swords, and free a bunch of people imprisoned in mysterious green mist -- in a way Lewis' book simply isn't.

Its attempts to overcome the story's episodic nature are clumsy, its effects only intermittently special, and its dufflepuds not nearly funny enough.

The "quest" element, a common fantasy staple, is uninspired and perfunctory, and there's a growing sense throughout the movie that there's no real point to any of what is occurring.