The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is the latest film adaptation of C.S. Lewis’ famed book series. While it may be the latest edition to the franchise, it is by no means the best.

The film opens with Edmund and Lucy Pevensie trapped in England with their obnoxious cousin Eustace, while their two siblings, Peter and Susan, are presumably off living life to the fullest in America with their parents. Edmund and Lucy often pass the time by doing humdrum activities while reminiscing about their days as King and Queen of Narnia. Eustace, a skeptic, ridicules the two, claiming they read far too many fairy tales.

One day, during a heated argument, the trio is transported via a painting to the magical land of Narnia. There, the three characters meet up with Prince Caspian on the ship christened the Dawn Treader, and once again embark on a perilous journey to save Narnia from evil.

Unfortunately for moviegoers, a significant portion of this journey takes place on the Dawn Treader. Off the ship, audiences are treated to magical action sequences. However, soon after, the characters are forced to climb back onto the ship’s leaky deck for on-ship character development. The filmmakers decided to focus more on character development within the confines of the Dawn Treader. However, the character development was shallow at best.

The characters’ main issues in the film are Lucy’s jealousy of her sister’s supposed beauty, Edmund’s desire to supplant Caspian, and Eustace’s overwhelming snobbery. Lucy’s envy of her sister is resolved fairly early in the film, and afterwards the problem never comes up again.

Edmund’s desire to be king, while another potentially interesting plot point, is sadly underused. It surfaces once at a seemingly random interval in the middle of the story, and appears again toward the end with little to no consequence for anyone.

Eustace tends to steal the show throughout the film, with his skeptical attitude adding a refreshing contrast to the other characters. His flaws are pretty well addressed through the movie. By the end, it feels as if he is the only character that has made the full transition from skeptic to believer.

Despite its flaws, the plot serves its purpose for the most part. However, one thing in particular tends to stand out: the film never really explains the exact nature of the evil force in the story. The evil force takes the shape of a green mist that goes around and swallows up people who happen to be sailing near it. Most of the mist’s victims are those that are sacrificed to it by a town that has been taken over by slave traders.

The problem is that the mist eats people, but beyond that it does not do much. The mist is certainly not a world-wide threat, and has presumably been in the area for a long time. The mist’s motives for taking people are not explored. In fact, a reasonable solution to the mist problem seems to be to simply avoid it all together.

Besides the uninspired character development, the acting in the film is surprisingly good. Lucy, played by Georgie Henley, Edmund, played by Skandar Keynes, and Eustace, played by Will Poulter, all give convincing performances. Caspian, played by Ben Barnes, does an adequate job too.

In addition, the special effects in the movie deserve praise. The film offers viewers a particularly well done CGI (computer generated imaged) dragon, a sea serpent and several other spectacular sights. The non-computer generated effects in the movie are unfortunately bland when compared to their CGI counterparts. This is especially evident with the crew’s minotaurs. These half human, half bull creatures appear in both CGI and costume, and while they look decent enough during their computer generated scenes they look noticeably poorly made in reality.

Although the previous Narnia films took place in a large scale environment, having enormous battles between the forces of good and evil, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader has a much smaller setting. This aspect tends to hurt the film rather than help it, but younger audiences will probably still gain enjoyment from the fantasy elements and good effects. However, older viewers won’t find much to like from this latest edition of the Narnia series.