How are the kids going to take to preachy C.S. Lewis after the pagan Harry Potter and the titillating Twilight? Michael Apted's adaptation of the third of the Christian apologist's seven-book series about a world where youngsters can have adventures and learn their lessons stirs up some of the magic of the original, and it even brought a tear to this apostate's eye with its scenes of pathos and redemption. For the most part, though, the film is rote and humorless and muddied by perfunctory 3D. The two youngest Pevensie siblings, Edmund (Skandar Keynes) and Lucy (Georgie Henley), are whisked back to Narnia along with the token cowardly skeptic, their cousin Eustace (Will Poulter). There they join King Caspian (Ben Barnes) of the previous film in a search for seven swords from seven lords. It's kind of like looking for the Horcruxes in The Deathly Hallows, but not as much fun.
