So I saw the new Narnia movie last night. I went in well-armed with spoilers, so as not to be disappointed. It was pretty and adventury and had dragons and sea serpents and sword fights and so forth.
Changes from the book of Voyage of the Dawn Treader:
Eustace stays a dragon for much longer, and in fact fights the sea serpent. Edmund is all whiney about not being in charge of things. Caspian does not in fact hit on Ramandu's daughter. Lucy doesn't do the eavesdropping spell but comes much closer to doing the "make me beautiful" spell. There are a few other things that are not just changes but actively non-canonical that peeved me.
The big change is that they made more of a plot, but I thought it was kind of a stupid plot. They created a Great Evil that has to be defeated with the use of plot tokens, none of which is in the original. The working theory is that this is all in service of setting up the story for The Silver Chair, assuming this makes enough money to justify making that one.
Acting-wise, I was less pleased with Skandar Keynes here as Edmund than in the earlier movies. Ben Barnes as Caspian was fine, and very nice in tight trousers. Georgie Henley's Lucy was fine and she got to do some fighting, so yay. But Will Poulter as Eustace Clarence Scrubb was fabulous--he was funny and unpleasant and simply wonderful, especially in the very end.
It's quite pretty, with fun clothes and sets and stuff. Not totally awesome, but fun.