Welcome, welcome to a reasonably entertaining and excessively mild action frolic (I won’t call it a “romp” because that’s giving it quite a bit more credit than is actually merited) that should at least manage to keep you awake courtesy of a few mild thrills and a plot that manages to keep its heroes almost completely out of anything resembling peril: it’s The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, and it’ll likely prove at least moderately entertaining assuming you don’t fall into the same trap that Peter and Susan Pevensie themselves actually did.

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader reunites us with the younger Pevensies, who have apparently been promoted at some point because the elder Pevensie children somehow became too old for Narnia (which is actually a pretty healthy risk for the audience itself). And Narnia once again finds itself in need of their heroic British children promoted beyond all reason or common sense (well, what do you expect when the entire planet is run by a magical lion?) as they’re out to recover a collection of swords and put paid to an island apparently made out of solid evil–they’re not going to be real long on exposition here–and make the evil disappear by depositing the swords on the island where their magical lion lives.

Yes, it’s implausible to say the least, and poorly-explained to say the worst, but at the very least it will be a breathtaking viewing experience even if not very much is actually happening. See, most of the plot here–if it can even be called a plot, how they got a novel out of this is beyond me–takes place on a boat, which is a bad place to set a story clearly geared toward small children, because nothing really bad can happen and so most of your intrigues and assassinations and things that make sense in close quarters for long periods can’t happen here.

So what we’re left with is an overly long tale in which we’re chasing down a bunch of pointy metal sticks that, somehow, make all evil go away everywhere when they’re arranged in an approximation of a circle on a big table.

Who ever thought that table-setting skills would one day save the world?

And that’s the sad part: at least the last installment had a few good battle scenes involved. This wreck can barely dredge up a good fight with a giant CG sea monster taking on a lesser-giant CG dragon.

It’s not unpleasant to watch–rather, the effects here are beautiful and really nicely done–it’s just that there’s not much to it. Young children will doubtless be enthralled by the occasional flashes of sword and sorcery, but mom and dad, meanwhile, will be left wondering just when the actual movie begins.

It’s tepid, it’s bland, but it does look beautiful, and as such, the Screenhead Ten Scale hands The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader a weak-sauce five out of ten. It’s hardly a worthwhile successor to its predecessors, but it will at least make a passable presentation.