Being a femme d'un certain age, I grew up reading the Narnia books and loving them. Sure, they are packed full of Christian symbolism, enough so that bits spill out on the floor every time you open one of the books...but that didn't matter.

What mattered was that the stories were GREAT. Even the less-good ones, like Prince Caspian, I read over and over because Lewis' vision, and his characters, and the lovely quirky illustrations by Pauline Baynes, were so perfectly realized that it was a joy to revisit that world.

And there were some cartoony tv movies and miniseries based on them (how could there not be?) but I managed to ignore all of that.

I even stayed calm when the publisher started reissuing them in INTERNAL CHRONOLOGICAL order rather than PUBLICATION order...evidently Lewis had actually said that this is a good way to read them. I don't agree, but whatevs.

Then they started making big-budget live-action movies of them, and (thank goodness) went in publication order, so as to start with the most famous, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. And it was very good.

Then they made Prince Caspian, the next book in publication order, into a movie. This was more problematic, because it wasn't a very good book...not that much happened besides one big battle. But the moviemakers added some more plot very carefully and intelligently, and it was a really good movie.

So imagine the excitement when Maid-of-Awesome told me that Voyage of the Dawn Treader, book 3, was being filmed.

It opened in February, and the night it opened we were in line at our local emporium du movies, ready to buy tickets and enjoy it (with our guys, Mr. Otter and The Fiance). And as we stood in line, we saw those awful words, IN 3D, on the listing at the box office. WTF? I said to M-o-A. But, she said, I checked for one that WASN'T 3D because I know you can't see it.

So I asked at the box office. Sure enough, not only was every show of this movie 3D, but they were CHARGING AN EXTRA FOUR BUCKS TO SEE IT THAT WAY.

So we all went home and watched something else.

And I put it on my netflix queue. And on Friday, it arrived. I emailed M-o-A and said, come over this weekend, we'll watch it. Because this was my, and her, favorite of the series- lots happening, great characters, a wonderful story, and sailing to faraway uncharted islands.

How could this not make a great movie?

Oh, easy. Just rewrite the hell out of it, add a bunch of stupid stuff that wasn't in the book, and kind of mess up the characters. Piece of cake.

Sigh.

We really wanted to like it. We were really excited by it. And about ten minutes into it, M-o-A and I were saying, wait a minute, that didn't happen. Wasn't it like this? why are they doing that? that's STUPID. Oh my god, look what's happening now!

We were so bad that Mr. Otter checked out of the movie and started working on his writing. Thank God I didn't see this in the theater with you guys, he said.

M-o-A spent the second half of the movie flipping off the screen with both hands.

Okay, I'm a purist. I really think the story as Lewis wrote it was plenty exciting and interesting enough without adding bogus evil green mists that steal people and a cute kid trying to get her mommy back from the green mist and seven swords that have to be brought together at just the right time. They rewrote Prince Caspian, and I was happy with that...but not this one.

And the special effects were GREAT. Everything LOOKED just right. Even horrible Eustace looked just like he ought...but truly, that didn't help. They threw money at this...and it didn't help. Because this was just AWFUL.

Near the end, when we were screaming and shooting ourselves in the heads and flipping off the screen, M-o-A said something like, There is no redeeming this. But Mr. Otter and I both heard, There is no redeeminess.

And that was exactly right. There was NO REDEEMINESS to this movie.

Skip it and read the book again, you'll be much happier.