Potter It Isn't: New Narnia Lacks Magic

Critics aren’t enthralled by The Voyage of the Dawn Treader the third film based on CS Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia. (Its Rotten Tomatoes rating is 51%.) But there are some bright spots:

• Manohla Dargis calls the film “largely dreary” in the New York Times. Still, “though there are times when the movie turns into a congested mess, there are moments when you also see a quieter, less industrial production.”

• The film reminds us” that “the Pevensie family is always destined to come in second to Harry and Hermione,” writes Elizabeth Weitzman in the New York Daily News. It fails to “connect with the deeply human emotions that propel the best fantasies.”
• But at the Chicago Tribune, Michael Phillips has some kind words: the film, which “strikes an artful balance between allegorical religious concerns and escapist ones,” beats out its predecessors.

(More Chronicles of Narnia stories.)