Wednesday, 22 December 2010

Movie review: The Chronicles of Narnia - The Voyage of the Bunch of Idiots

It's been a long time since I read the book, but were all the characters such morons in that as well?

In case you're unaware of the premise - it's set on some ocean and there's a Narnian ship called the Dawn Treader voyaging around solving mysteries and the like. The mouse with the sword - Reepicheep - has a cold and it's affected his voice so now he sounds like Simon Pegg. If only Strepsils existed in made up lands and came in handy mouse sized lozenges.

Anyway, back to the moronity. The ship makes landfall at some harbour. It is Deserted. As in empty. As in no sod there. Something fishy's going on you might think, and you'd be right! Suppose you're a King, and you're in charge of the ship and a whole kingdom, then you're quite important. You might think, quite sensibly, how about we send some a few expendable crew members to have a look see while people above the rank of Prince stay safe on board the ship. Maybe send the mouse with the sword - perhaps a change of scene will cure his throat infection and he'll sound like Eddie Izzard again.

Though if you're in this film instead you gather all important people (i.e. other Kings and Queens) and off you all toddle, just the three of you, not even with one or two of the fifty or so crew men armed with big swords and axes, just you and the two annoying younger kids from the first two films, and go and investigate.

The pinnacle of stupidity was reached just as the ship arrived at an unknown and uncharted mysterious isle.

This is not a direct quote, but I think I remembered the gist of it.

Says King Caspian (King of the Morons):

What ho lads! We appear to have reached the mysterious and uncharted island that we were warned about. The island that all our mates went off to find, but then disappeared.

Right ho, let's leave the security of our ship, safe behind the protective barrier of water, behind the thick oak planks of the sheer sides where a man armed with a cross bow can make smart remarks to any one foolish enough to row out in a small boat. Yeah, let's leave all that, go ashore and camp on the beach. And just to make sure that we're all well rested for the morning, everyone go to sleep, no one stay on guard. Because obviously nothing untoward is going to happen on this strange and mysterious uncharted island we were warned about.


There were some good things about this film. I liked Will Poulter, the kid from School of Comedy on E4 who played the annoying cousin Eustace. I was also rather taken by the subtlety of the religious imagery.

The 3D sucked though - long swathes of the film could be viewed minus the glasses. This led to brighter colours and a smug feeling of being the only normal one watching.

I give it 2 out of 5.

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