Spike the Wave ~ The Life & Times of Dave: reviews

movie poster

Two days after Christmas we went as a group to see The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. We did not see the 3D version. (By "we" I mean "Sarah with an 'h'", "Bennett the Backpack Wearer", "Tim the Ever-Hungry", and me.)

(warning: this post contains spoilers)

Before the Movie

Upon entering the theater, we promptly got into the admissions line. Standing immediately in front of us in line was a flock of teens who became confused about showtimes or admission charges or something when it was their turn to talk to the cashier. Fortunately, they quickly (well, quickly for a flock of teens) left the line so we could buy our tickets. It's so fascinating to observe them in the wild!

We took our seats in the appropriate theater in time to listen (not watch, just listen) to 20 or so minutes of commercials "on" the silver screen, as apparently the theater didn't see a need to run the projector. Just before they started playing the movie trailers, though, they decided to turn on the projector so we finally had something to watch. Yay!


Bumblebee from Transformers

One of the trailers was really cool. It depicted mankind's first trip to the moon back in the late 1960s. According to the trailer, though, the astronauts landed first on the dark side of the moon in order to quickly investigate a crash-landed highly-advanced alien space craft. While this was playing, I, of course, was thinking about the first part of Alien (one of the best suspense/monster/scifi movies of all time). It's all really looking pretty cool, like the movie might be some sort of alternate history. Then they showed it... Transformers: Dark of the Moon. *sigh*

The Movie

I really liked the movie. When it had finished, it didn't seem as if we'd been watching it for so long (in a good way). Lots of good action and adventure, with little down time.

Speaking of which... the movie did at times feel rushed. As if the director were under orders to keep the total run-time under 2 hours and thus had to edit out scenes in order to hit that restriction. Scenes that weren't bad... but just pushed the run time over the arbitrary limit. And in the process, the movie ends up losing.

A really good example of this is when they were on the Magician's island (the one with the Dufflepuds)... that part alone probably could've been 5 - 10 minutes longer. Why do the Dufflepuds, according to the movie, have only one foot? And who wouldn't have wanted to see more of that island? Or of the Magician's mansion? In the movie, the Magician seems to exist solely for exposition, unfortunately, and he and his island are quickly gone.

There was another part of the movie, when they'd been sailing through a storm for quite a while, during which the captain of the ship warned Caspian about how the storm is affecting the crewmembers (hint: not in a good way). A few seconds later they're sailing out of the storm. It seemed like a minute or two had been cut here, too... the movie just seemed to jump too quickly from "the crew might do something drastic" to "yay, land & sunshine".

The movie also, I think, could've spent more time on Ramandu's island. And perhaps exploring the tension between Caspian and Edmund regarding his daughter.

Most any book turned into a movie will have its story altered to better fit the medium, and this story was no exception. Generally, I think the changes gave the movie a much tighter, faster-paced story, in a good way. Though, as I've already mentioned, perhaps too fast-paced.

I've read a few reviews complaining about the part of the movie when Aslan turns Eustace back into a boy differing significantly from the book. I think the way the movie did it well-suited the movie format.

A subplot involved a temptation Lucy faced, and the consequences she and others might have experienced were she to have fully given in. It was very well-done, especially with the foreshadowing used.

I loved the scene where Lucy caused snow to fall. That was really cool.

A big difference between the book and the movie, is that in the movie their quest quickly turns into a need to fight the Green Mist and its implied evil, and collect seven magic swords. None of that is in the book. Frankly, I think it's a much better story for having this in there... in that the Green Mist/magic swords plot provides a strong purpose for Caspian's voyage, a sense of urgency, that merely trying to find seven lost noblemen doesn't.

It was really clever how the movie makers continue to include the White Witch in the movies. I suspect that if they do make a movie based on The Silver Chair, that they will change the antagonist to be the White Witch, either resurrected or reborn in some way.

By the way, the dude who played Eustace did an amazingly good job.

I give the movie 3.0/4.0, good but not great. Definitely family friendly, though young children might be scared by the some scenes.