The latest Narnia film is like watching childhood dreams come alive - if you put them through the Hollywood CGI machine. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader follows the adventures of Edmund and Lucy Pevensie in the fantasy world of British writer CS Lewis. His seven-novel series is considered a classic of the genre, and Dawn Treader makes for a rollicking ride on film.
Ben Barnes plays the handsome King Caspian, Georgie Henley plays Lucy, and Skandar Keynes plays Edmund, but Will Poulter steals the show from the movie's stars. He plays the siblings' cousin, Eustace Scrubb, an absolute little pill. The teens are thrown together on a quest fit for royalty. Their journey is enlivened by a perky cast of characters from swashbuckling mice and muscle-bound Minotaurs in the style of the best MMORPG.
As the books were written for children back in the 1950s, the script is refreshingly free from bad language and needless violence. It's full of quotable dialogue and leavened with great moral fibre. Of course, good triumphs over evil.
Where the movie falls short is that the script feels almost as if it is run on a stopwatch. Things happen predictably and fights look fake.
Still, it's like your favourite blanky: comforting and ever so snug.