Not quite a must-see, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is nonetheless a sturdy outing with many of the charms that have become franchise trademarks.

The visual splendor is still there, in moderate amounts.

Despite some rejiggering of the book's plot, it's a film that should please Narnia fans and, if it does well, may lead to the return of Eustace in the next installment, The Silver Chair. Here's hoping.

The 3-D effects are standard, the children and the prince are a bit bland, and Michael Apted's direction veers into listlessness, but there is, at times, a pleasing elegance to the production, too. It doesn't assault you.

Apted brings back a sense of the old-fashioned fun of the low-tech 1960s myths-and-monsters matinees, when no roiling sea ever failed to harbor a giant serpent -- and men stood in the bows of ships facing peril with chins of iron.

It's great to be back in Narnia.

Where the others aimed for greatness and missed, this one aims for middle-of-the-road and basically hits it.