The Adventures of Tintin

Title: The Adventures of Tintin
Year: 2011
Director: Steven Spielberg
Writers: Steven Moffat, Edgar Wright and Joe Cornish, based on the comic books by Hergé
Starring: Jamie Bell, Andy Serkis, Daniel Craig, Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Tony Curran, Toby Jones
MPAA Rating: PG, adventure action violence, some drunkenness and brief smoking
Runtime: 107 min
IMDb Rating: 7.8
Rotten Tomatoes: 75%
Metacritic: 67

I knew I would really like The Adventures of Tintin. After all, it was Steven Spielberg, one of the greatest ever, doing his first animated film, in motion-capture, with the help of Andy Serkis, the pioneer of the technology and who already delivered one of the best performances of the year as Caesar in Rise of the Planet of the Apes, a mo-cap creation. The screenplay was written by three guys that make my geeky heart pump, Steven Moffat (he of Doctor Who and Sherlock), Edgar Wright (he of Shaun of the Dead and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World) and Joe Cornish (he of this year’s Attack the Block, which I gave an A to). And it was based on the Hergé comics I devoured as a child and which I remember really fondly.

The result? Well, it’s a pretty damn exceptional film, with Steven Spielberg taking a lot pages from his own playbook, especially Raiders of the Lost Ark, to really deliver a hugely entertaining film, an action adventure thrill ride with some sequences that will make your jaw hit the floor for the sheer awesomeness they evoke and just how insanely well-made they are, this film becoming the second example of the year of how just how effective motion-capture can be if used by the right hands. And obviously, few hands are as trustworthy as Steven Spielberg’s, even if he’s the analog guy, he really seems to have been reinvigorated by this new technology that allowed him to create some shots physics would have maybe made too difficult to shoot regularly. This is Steven Spielberg feeling like a kid in a new playbox, the one of motion-capture, and one in which he can run free and do pretty much whatever he wants, it’s no wonder then that his creative juices were flowing at such high levels.

It’s not just the action, though, Mr. Spielberg is still super careful with the characters and pays great attention to the small details, and of course he’s joined by John Williams, his longtime composer who hadn’t produced a score since Mr. Spielberg’s fourth Indiana Jones film three years ago, and that comes back this year with this thrill ride and the much more old-school, emotional, epic War Horse that Mr. Spielberg premiered in the same week as this film (and which I’m hoping I’ll get to see really soon). And look, I won’t lie, motion-capture still is kind of creepy, it still sits in a really uneasy place between animation and live-action that it’s sort of still carving out for itself, but this isn’t The Polar Express creepy, this is much more refined animation, and in the hands of Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson, who closely produced, supervised the post and would helm a potential sequel (with him co-directing with Mr. Spielberg a tentative third), and who of course employed mo-cap in his Lord of the Rings trilogy and King Kong (thus the employment of Jamie Bell and Andy Serkis here), the technology really goes to new places in which you don’t get distracted by it but instead get engulfed by the world it presents.

Because it really is incredibly hard not to be sucked in by Steven Spielberg presenting an action adventure film featuring action scenes in motorcycles, at sea, on air, on really awesome locations and featuring some badass villains. And as someone that grew up with Tintin as a kid, it was just brilliant to see his stories on the big screen as acted and voiced by Jamie Bell, even though something about the animation on the character made him seem younger than he probably should have. The animation, however, is done perfectly well on Snowy, the incredibly awesome and loyal dog that always accompanies Tintin on all his adventures, he pretty much walks away with the whole film. Also around, of course, are Captain Haddock as played by Andy Serkis, and Thomson and Thompson, the two nearly-identical detectives that usually are on the same cases as Tintin, and who are here played, thanks to a genius casting choice, by Simon Pegg and Nick Frost.

The approach Mr. Spielberg took with the mo-cap technology in re-creating these classic characters is truly ambitious and it really paid off. I was admittedly kind of scared at first, after all these were characters that were so awesome because of how simple the drawings of Hergé seemed on the page, they were truly 2D creations. And yet, the animations are so awesomely done that, while the characters obviously look far more human than they did in the comics, they maintain every little bit of the feel the characters had when I read them, and that’s what they were ultimately all about. Further enhancing the experience is the fact that 3D on the hands of someone like Steven Spielberg is used not as a cheap gimmick, but as a true way to enhance our overall experience of the world we’re thrown into.

As we follow Tintin and Captain Haddock on the search for a sunken ship once commanded by Haddock’s ancestor, and their encounters with the film’s antagonist, Ivan Ivanovitch Sakharine, played by Daniel Craig (who had worked with Mr. Spielberg before on Munich), we’re taken on a rollercoaster ride full of explosions and chases and seriously fun characters played and voiced by a truly incredible cast. It’s impossible not to love The Adventures of Tintin, even if you’re not familiar with the character, even if you think you don’t like motion-capture, this film is tremendous, a seriously smart family-friendly film that will honestly be enjoyed by every member of the family. After a three year absence (or six if you, like me, would rather believe the fourth Indy film didn’t happen) Steven Spielberg is back, reinvigorated by a new technology he employs to create some mind-bending sequences reminiscent of his best work in the action adventure genre.

Grade: A-

Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol

Title: Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol
Year: 2011
Director: Brad Bird
Writers: André Nemec and Josh Appelbaum, based on the television series by Bruce Geller
Starring: Tom Cruise, Jeremy Renner, Simon Pegg, Paula Patton, Michael Nyqvist, Vladimir Mashkov, Samuli Edelmann, Anil Kapoor, Josh Holloway, Léa Seydoux, Tom Wilkinson
MPAA Rating: PG-13, sequences of intense action and violence
Runtime: 133 min
IMDb Rating: 7.9
Rotten Tomatoes: 93%
Metacritic: 74

 

The first two Mission: Impossible films, released in 1996 and 2001, helped solidify Tom Cruise as a true movie star more than capable of carrying an action franchise full of really awesome effects-driven setpieces. Another five years passed and in 2006 J.J. Abrams stepped up to direct a third installment, which up until now had actually been my favorite of the entire series, with an awesome pacing and spectacular stunts that proved that Tom Cruise still very much had it. Now, another five years have gone by, and we get Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, the fourth installment in the franchise; but in this interim between films Mr. Cruise’s stock in Hollywood had decreased quite a bit, with only his cameo in the hilarious Tropic Thunder salvaging something from the disappointments that were Lions for Lambs, Valkyrie and last year’s Knight & Day (which I gave a B- to), the latter of which was considered by many a commercial disappointment and put doubts as to whether Mr. Cruise could still carry an action film by himself.

Which is maybe why it seemed to make some sense when word was heard that the new Mission: Impossible film was courting actors like Tom Hardy, Chris Pine and Anthony Mackie for the role of a new spy that would act alongside Mr. Cruise’s Ethan Hunt in this one, to then maybe transition into a starring role and take over if the franchise moved forward. Jeremy Renner eventually landed that role (getting himself his first of three franchises, what with the upcoming Avengers movie and his leading role in the Bourne reboot), and he’s incredibly good in this film. But, what I’m getting at is that having someone take over from Tom Cruise won’t be necessary, this film has the man back in top form, delivering one of my twenty favorite films of the entire year, and certainly the best one yet in the whole franchise.

Seriously, this is the definition of what a good action blockbuster should be; really fast-paced, full of huge setpieces that are stunning to behold and really grab you by the throat, and an impeccable overall style courtesy of director Brad Bird, who with this film made a seriously incredible foray into live-action features, having previously dabbled only in animation, winning two Oscar’s in the process for Pixar’s The Incredibles and Ratatouille. And Tom Cruise is just awesome in this one, making us forget about any recent missteps and just remember him as the pure action star he was, his added years actually add something to him, making Ethan Hunt feel like a more weathered and experienced guy, and the fact that Mr. Cruise himself performed the stunt in which he scales the outside of the Burj Khalifa Tower without any help from a stuntman is really mind-boggling. He’s just the real deal, a true movie star of which we don’t have many left, with the looks, charm and actual chops it takes to carry a huge film like this.

As much as this is Mr. Cruise’s show, however, kudos have to be given to whoever made the decision of making this new Mission: Impossible transition from its tried-and-true method of just making it about Ethan Hunt saving the day, into more of a team adventure, with Mr. Renner’s Brandt, as well as Simon Pegg’s Benji and Paula Patton’s Jane, taking off some of the weight from him and adding quite a bit of their own charisma and talents to make the film really stand out. This is a classic action film, we’re whirled around the world to exotic locales, we have really gorgeous women (Léa Seydoux is stunning), nifty gadgets that you want to exist really badly, and a movie star doing some seriously jaw-dropping stunts for over two hours which go by like a breeze.

The fact that this comes from a man who usually works at Pixar is only further proof that that’s the best company to work at in the world. Not to mention that it was only a matter of time before animation directors made a jump to live-action films (Wall-E‘s Andrew Stanton is spearheading John Carter for Disney which is due in March), after all, special-effects are mostly done on computers now, and animation is looking incredibly real and is known for a lot of action, not to mention that Mr. Bird’s animated films have a lot of character development and The Incredibles was the first Pixar film about humans. So Brad Bird was actually a genius choice to take the reigns of this film, and how masterfully this whole endeavor is constructed: shot really gracefully, impeccably choreographed and with a great sense of humor, only validates that decision like crazy, and Paramount would have to be dumb not to beg him to return for another go-round in the already-announced fifth film in the franchise.

This is a pure action film, that’s done in the best way possible; that shot I mentioned atop of the Burj Khalifa Tower in Dubai is one of the best minutes of film I’ve seen all year, the way it’s choreographed and shot and edited taking your breath away. And even though that’s certainly the scene everyone will be talking about, and with good reason, that assessment applies to every other set piece we see in this film, the bit inside the Kremlin with the super high-tech screen, the opening prison break that’s really well done, and of course that climatic battle in a super modern car park in which metal platforms go up and down to retrieve cars; every last minute of this damn film is supremely cool.

The plot involves a villain, that’s played by Michael Nyqvist (the guy who played Mikael Blomkvist in the Swedish version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and its two sequels), an evil genius who has Russian launch codes and plans to use them in order to start a nuclear war between the U.S. and Russia, working under the theory that he believes such a chaos would bring forward natural selection and more highly evolved humankind. Ethan Hunt and his team, of course, are the ones that are to prevent such a war from taking place. The catch, however, and where the film’s subtitle comes from, is that the government has initiated ghost protocol after his team was involved in a really messy international incident, which means that now their government won’t acknowledge their existence, hanging them out to dry without any sort of assistance and with many people under the impression that they’re potential terrorists when in reality they’re the ones chasing the terrorists.

The fact that the team has to fend for itself without being able to call for assistance and relying just on each other and their own wits is damn awesome, Mr. Cruise being the team leader, the guy who calls the shots and takes the risks; Mr. Renner playing an “analyst” with more than a few surprises up his sleeve, a great counterpart to Ethan Hunt and a worthy successor if Mr. Cruise should ever decide his team as the guy dangling from the world’s tallest building is up; Mr. Pegg’s minor role from the last movie as a comic relief is upgraded to a fully-fleshed character now, and he’s awesome as always, providing some of the aforementioned humor that Mr. Bird relies on to keep this film from taking itself too seriously; and Ms. Patton is good as Jane, combining a sexyness with the ability to really kick some ass.

Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol is by far the best of the franchise, and it’s one of the year’s best films, one that manages to make 133 minutes seem like a really short time, expertly knowing how to blow your mind and keep you at the edge of your seat. Front and center is Tom Cruise, showing that he still has the goods, being a true movie star, carrying a film with a little help from some truly talented friends. And chief amongst those friends is the man behind the camera, Brad Bird, a guy who deserves a lot of credit for this film being as amazing as it is, making a jump from animation to live-action that Andrew Stanton can only hope he can come close to emulating and, strangely enough considering his background, showing that live-action stunts done with wires and actual guys that do their physics-defyings jobs, Mr. Cruise included, can be just as exhilarating as the best CGI out there.

Grade: A

Burke and Hare

Title: Burke and Hare
Year: 2011
Director: John Landis
Writers: Piers Ashworth and Nick Moorcroft
Starring: Simon Pegg, Andy Serkis, Isla Fisher, Tom Wilkinson
MPAA Rating: Not rated
Runtime: 91 min
Major Awards: –
IMDb Rating: 6.1
Rotten Tomatoes: 36%

 

Seeing John Ladis’ name listed as the director in a film used to mean people would expect comedic greatness from that movie. And those expectations were grounded in solid evidence, this is the guy that gave us Animal House, The Blues Brothers, An American Werewolf in London, Trading Places, Three Amigos and Coming to America between the late seventies and the eighties, all of them classic comedy films that are revered by a good number of people. The nineties saw the decline of Mr. Landis’ work though, through a number of original films that failed both commercially and critically, and through him taking on directing duties on Beverly Hills Cop III, by far the worst entry in the franchise and the one that essentially killed off any chances of the series going any further, as well as doing a sequel to The Blues Brothers that seriously failed to live up to the level of the original. And it seems that Mr. Landis was aware that he had lost his golden touch as he hasn’t directed a single film since Susan’s Plan, which went straight to video back in 1998.

So when I saw that there was a new film out, Burke and Hare, directed by Mr. Landis after more than a dozen years without giving us a feature-length film, you can be sure I was plenty intrigued. And look, this film isn’t great by any means, and the director still has a long ways to go if he ever wants to go back to his glory days, but while I won’t really go around recommending Burke and Hare to my friends or to you readers, there was definitely a part of me that saw in it a few glimpses of the John Landis of old, even if only for a few moments. On paper though, it really seemed like this was going to be the true amazing comeback a man like John Ladis deserves, because he, who had given us the aforementioned An American Werewolf in London, was now teaming up with Simon Pegg, who gave us Shaun of the Dead in 2004. By which I mean, these are two guys who have done exceptional films that manage to balance horror and comedy in the best of ways, and they now were coming together to present a comedic take on the most notorious team of murderers in early nineteenth century Scotland, it just seemed to good to be true.

And it kind of was too good to be true, it seems, as Burke and Hare comes nowhere close to matching the heights achieved by Shaun of the Dead or An American Werewolf in London. What made those two films stand out as the perfect mixes of comedy and horror was that they were smart enough to know how to take the horror elements seriously and not become a farce, while also knowing where to put in funny bits that become all the more amazing because they serve as an escape from the horror. Now, I guess it’s pretty obvious why this one wasn’t as amazing as the other films Mr. Landis and Mr. Pegg have done that marry the genres, and that’s because this time neither of them had a hand on the script. And it obviously all boils down to the script in a film like this and considering that Piers Ashowrth and Nick Moorcroft, the duo in charge of this one, haven’t really done anything particularly good in their careers so far, I guess it shouldn’t come as a huge surprise that Burke and Hare missed the target.

The other guy on whom this film relies on is also a favorite of mine, and that’s Andy Serkis, who of course I raved to the heavens for the stop-motion work he did as Caesar in this summer’s Rise of the Planet of the Apes (which currently stands as the 11th best film of the year to date for me), and here he plays the other half of the murderous duo Mr. Pegg is a part of. Mr. Pegg is Burke and Mr. Serkis is Hare, two guys who live during the grim poverty-stricken time of Scotland during the 1820’s and found out that selling corpses to anatomy lecturers was quite the way to get a bit more cash and decided that instead of waiting for people to die of natural causes, like their first sell did, they might as well take matters into their own hands.

And the thing is that Burke and Hare is a film that while trying its best to play out as a comedy with straight-up horror bits in it, it never really ends up being neither funny nor mildly scary, and considering that was its main objective you can’t really consider this one a success. And it’s truly a pity because the talent here is amazing, other than Mr. Landis, Mr. Pegg and Mr. Serkis you have Isla Fisher, Tom Wilkinson, Hugh Bonneville, Bill Bailey and a slew of other prime British talent that goes to waste because the script just didn’t warrant something great. Because this really is all the fault of Mr. Ashworth and Mr. Moorcroft, as they tried to make the macabre funny, but by doing so they severely toned down their characters and they end up not being much at all, and as such they’re in a horrible limbo, not being able to provide a good scare nor much more than a mild-mannered chuckle. Burke and Hare will leave you thinking a lot about what could have been, and really hoping Mr. Landis doesn’t take another dozen years to try again.

Grade: C+

Paul

Title: Paul
Year: 2011
Director: Greg Mottola
Writers: Nick Frost and Simon Pegg
Starring: Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Seth Rogen, Kristen Wiig, Jason Bateman, Bill Hader, Joe Lo Truglio, Jane Lynch, Sigourney Weaver
MPAA Rating: R, language including sexual references, and some drug use
Runtime: 104 min
Major Awards: –
IMDb Rating: 7.4
Rotten Tomatoes: 72%

It’s hard for me to describe the sense of anticipation that I had before I saw Paul. This was easily for me one of the films from the first half of 2011 that I wanted to see the most, and I’ll take a minute here to tell you exactly why that was.

First and foremost, it’s because of Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. I first came upon these two on Spaced, that masterpiece of a short-lived cult British TV series that starred both of them and was written by Mr. Pegg and directed by Edgar Wright, who I’m also a huge fan of and who’s the third component of this trifecta of British awesomeness. It’s hard to really describe how amazing Spaced is, and if you haven’t yet watched it I suggest you stop reading and go do that right now, it’s only 14 episodes full of witty pop-culture references and surrealist bits and just insanely great dialogue that you can watch in one unforgettable seating.

After Spaced the awesome trio took their talents to the big screen, and started their Blood and Ice Cream Trilogy with Shaun of the Dead, a romcom film that also had zombies and that was a true success and that had you thinking these three should stick together forever. And, well, they sort of had us thinking that they just might, as 2007 saw the second installment of that trilogy come to life as Hot Fuzz arrived in theaters and showed everyone that these three weren’t one-trick ponies.

Both of those films are probably amongst my ten favorite films of their respective years, and so I was saddened to see that the guys weren’t immediately releasing the final chapter in their trilogy, which is reportedly going to be called The World’s End. Instead, they went on to do their own separate things. Mr. Frost had a role in The Boat That Rocked and a smaller one in Penelope. Mr. Pegg exploded real nicely onto the scene with significant roles in Mission: Impossible III and Star Trek among many others. And Mr. Wright went on to direct last year’s Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, which I have ranked as my 8th favorite film of all last year.

So yeah, they have been doing all right since the last time they all worked together. And even though there will be a mini-reunion of sorts to get us going until they decide to finally make The World’s End, which is happening late this year when Steven Spielberg’s motion capture 3D The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn (which was co-written by Mr. Wright and stars Mr. Pegg and Mr. Frost as Thomson and Thompson), this was the film that would see us see at least Mr. Pegg and Mr. Frost reunited in front of the camera.

So yes, I was excited about Paul, very excited actually. Two of the funniest people that excel the most when they’re together back on-screen as the two leading men of a film that they had written together. And then there’s the fact that this was to be directed by Greg Mottola, who has a pretty stellar record himself, this is the guy that started out in the mid-nineties with the very good Daytrippers, then went on to work on three TV series that not only are unequivocally great but have garnered a considerable cult following: Arrested Development, Undeclared and The Comeback. And then the guy went back to feature films in 2007 with Superbad, following that up with 2009’s Adventureland, both films I gave an A grade to. So, again, expectations were running high on Paul.

But that’s been me going on for way too long about why I was looking forward to Paul so damn much, and not a word on exactly how I thought it finally was. Well, here’s the thing, it’s not as great as Shaun of the Dead or Hot Fuzz were, nor as great as Superbad or Adventureland, but it’s still seriously good. I mean, it’s tough to match the heights the former films of the people attached to it did, but this one honestly doesn’t fall that far from it. It has its uneven moments, but it also has quite a few of those magical moments we know these people can deliver, and with Seth Rogen voicing the titular foul-mouthed alien the two encounter, then you can count one at least being a pretty unique roadtrip movie.

I mean, this is a very warm-hearted film in the end (and the actual ending is pretty awesome), one that’s full of a lot of giggles, and that’s pure great entertainment. It’s just fun to see people having fun on-screen together, and Mr. Pegg and Mr. Frost, along the many familiar and funny faces they bring along for the ride like Kristen Wiig, Jason Bateman, Bill Hader and Sigourney Weaver (Ripley!), definitely look as though they were having a ball just riffing off each other.

My expectations were ridiculously high and I still found myself loving every last second of Paul, loving how sweet it was behind it all, which was a refreshing change from most R-rated comedies of late who think they have to be dirty all the time.

Mr. Pegg and Mr. Frost are geek heroes by now, their work alongside Edgar Wright (who’s an even bigger geek hero of mine) has cemented their statuses as such because of how lovingly they homage many genres in the movies they do together. And here, even though their usual partner-in-crime is away, they continue at it quite brilliantly, spoofing the sci-fi genre in a way that you know only true sci-fi geeks can, doing some references to films like Star Trek, Star Wars, Close Encounters of the Third Kind and a cool and extra-geeky one to the lesser known Mac and Me.

Paul is an awesome film, it’s not Shaun of the Dead or Hot Fuzz because it really wasn’t trying to be, it was trying to be something more silly while still retaining the heart and wit of those two, which it honestly did. This is a film with a cast full of great people, headlined by two guys that have so much love for each other it’s infectious to watch on screen, and by a third guy who does wonders voicing a stoner alien. It’s pure honest fun, and that’s all you can ask for until we get The World’s End.

Grade: A-

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

Title: The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
Year: 2010
Director: Michael Apted
Writers: Christopher Markus, Stephen McFeely and Michael Petroni, based on the novel by C.S. Lewis
Starring: Georgie Henley, Skandar Keynes, Will Poulter, Ben Barnes, Liam Neeson, Simon Pegg
MPAA Rating: PG, some frightening images and sequences of fantasy action
Runtime: 115 min
Major Awards: –
IMDb Rating: 6.7
Rotten Tomatoes: 49%

If you have followed the history of the Narnia movies you probably know how much was at stake with this one. The first film in the franchise, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, was a very entertaining film that was also a commercial success, making $745 million at the box office worldwide. After that, in 2008, came its sequel, The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, a film that had a budget nearly $50 million bigger than that of the first one, but that wasn’t as good as the first one, and was considered a box office disappointment, making less than $420 million, a huge decline from the first installment.

That steep fall in box office gross caused Disney to decide to back off the franchise, and Fox then acquired the distribution rights for this third entry. And, basically, if this one didn’t do well it meant our chances of getting to see The Chronicles of Narnia: The Silver Chair, the potential fourth film, would be pretty much done with. And, unfortunately for us who wanted to go for another trip to Narnia this one didn’t do so well on its first weekend in theaters doing less than $25 million and managing to make on its entire first weekend just a bit more than what the first film in the franchise did on its first day of release. Fox is counting on word of mouth and the holiday season to see this one have some legs in it, but sequels don’t usually have much of those, which means this may just be our last adventure with the Pevensies.

But, whether it makes money or not, I will say one thing, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader was, to me, a much better experience than its predecessor, though not as good as the first one. However, the improvement from the second entry in the franchise, I believe, won’t be significant enough to warrant fans of the source material to trust the film adaptations again. The performances were pretty good, and the special effects looked seriously amazing, but the film wasn’t really that good in the end.

The problem I have with the Narnia films is that, unlike the Harry Potter films, which are the standard for family fantasy epics, they are films that will have you spending a decent two hours of your afternoon but that won’t stay for you for much longer than that. That’s the problem for me, it doesn’t warrant repeat viewings, it doesn’t bring out the fanboy spirit that the good films of its type achieve, and considering the richness of its source material that’s just inexcusable.

As I said, the effects are amazing here, and the battle sequences are still quite cool in all their PG-rated glory, and that will make for a fun couple of hours, especially if you have kids that likely won’t care much for all that’s missing from this film. But if you’re a fan of the series you’ll find fault in what’s not there, and in the pace this film adopts, one that may be consistent, but not in a good way.

You know how this adventure will go. Narnia will indeed be in need of the Pevensies once again, they’ll find their way back into this alternate reality, this time via a painting of an ocean that then spills into the room the painting was in, they’ll be aboard of a boat, that’s captained by last film’s Prince Caspian and will be reunited with Aslan, the wise lion with the voice of Liam Neeson.

As you might remember from the past movie, though I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t, the older Pevensies wouldn’t be coming back to Narnia anymore. So this time around we’re left with Edmund and Lucy, though they have brought their little cousin, Estace, on board with them.

On the boat we are then informed of how the Dark Island and those who inhabit it are threatening their magical land, and how the only way to beat them is to find and bring together these seven lost swords that would invoke the Lords of Telmar. And of course on a boat filled with an awesome lion, a warrior prince and a pretty cool rat voiced by Simon Pegg the most likely to complete the task are two young brothers and their even younger cousin. That’s how it is in Narnia.

The adventure is fun enough, at the very least it’s a very attractive visual spectacle, the battle against the huge sea monster an especially wicked sight. And if the pacing is going to feel so awfully pre-meditated as it is here, which is to say everything happens to create an opportunity for another cool special effects scene, then at least the effects in question are cool enough. The performances from the cast are actually quite all right, too, their characters aren’t developed as nicely as they could have been, but they make the most of it. It’s a family film, and as that I guess it doesn’t disappoint, not the best in show, but it’s better than the last one, and it might just be our last outing to this magical land so appreciate it as such.

Grade: B-