A Most Dissapointing Film
hallows (CT, US)
- 2Acting
- 3Directing
- 3Digital Effects
- 2Music (Score)
- 3Cinematography
- 1Adaptation
- 3Costumes
- 5Makeup/Prosthetics
- 2.75Your Rating
I think I should start by saying I thought LWW was okay. Not great, not terrible. Okay. It was a mediocre adaptation, did not capture the overall tone of Narnia in my opinion, and was somewhat rushed at times, but at least it was a well made, visually interesting, and entertaining fantasy film. The same cannot be said for PC. It was boring, long, melodramatic, had none of the joy of Narnia, and the last five minutes were terrible. But at least the acting (in particular the telmarines) was good, and the visuals were great. I was hoping that a new filmmaker could inject fresh life into the films. Dawn treader is one of the best books in The Chronicles and I had great anticipation for this film.
Where do I start. This Movie was abysmal, awful, horrific, cliched, boring, soulless, and disgraces all I have ever known about cinematic Narnia. Even if I was not a narnia fan and had never read the books, I would feel that on a base level,this film was poorly made. Let's start with the pacing and rhythm of the film. There were no sequences in this movie, there were only shots. There were no scenes during which tension built and i was totally engrossed in the film. It is very quickly paced so as to be boring. I agree with Rilian in an episode of the NW podcast, when he said "There are no character arcs in the film, there are only character moments." They randomly try to tell you something about the characters and try to make them feel like real human beings, but there is no consistency with each character and the acting is so bad that those moments feel incredibly artificial. Apted clearly did not care about the source material,and so the film is a huge mess. Dawn Treader feels like it was directed by a computer. The screenwriters dumped in their ridiculous 7 swords/green mist thing, but instead of developing that fully, they also tried to keep elements of the original book in the film as well. As such, the film feels like a bunch of ideas thrown together in a random and sloppy fashion. The plot makes very little sense and when it does it is horrificly cliche. Coriakins warning is one of the worst written scenes I have ever seen in a hollywood movie. Don't they realize that scene has been parodied many times? How do they expect us to take it seriously? Basically, the film is an incoherent and laughable mess. Think about the aftermath of the Coriakin scene. They never say goodbye to, or thank him for what he did. That is a basic human emotion that the audience could empathise with, plus it would provide closure to Coriakin's character. Basic storytelling that is present in all good movies is skirted over here. However, I may have been marginally entertained by the film if the action and visual effects were good. These were terrible as well. The belltower sequence at the Lone Islands was one of the sloppiest action scenes I have seen in a long time. And I watched The Last Airbender. Dragon Eustace looked fake as well(and don't even get me started on how badly they screwed up his character arc.) The dragon seemed to exist in a different world than the other characters. While they sat in the dark, the dragon glowed as if standing in the sun. The sea serpent battle was done badly as well. It was messy and boring and it was intercut with the terrible Eustace scenes. Another problem with the film was Reepicheep's character. All he did was crack stupid one liners. The whole point of Reepicheep in the book was that his emotions were as complex as a humans. Lewis tried to craft an interesting animal character and he certainly succeeded. The filmmakers could have gone the Pixar rout and crafted a realistic character. Instead he feels like a joke machine.
Wow, all this complaining and I haven't even gotten to some of the worst elements of the film(Green Mist, Liliandil). Basically, all the film delivered was complete, utter crap. I hope a good studio gets the narnia rights and hires a good filmmaker who likes the books. Maybe then we'll get some great Narnia films.That term certainly does not apply to this film. A colossal dissapointment.