Stream it now The Seeker: The Dark Is Rising 2007

 

Our family really enjoyed this movie. It's a great adventure flick for kids, but the adults liked it as well. We loved the setting, and the unique story. It's also fun for kids to see a young person as the hero of the movie.

What is there to like about this movie? The American accents? The absurd travesties dealt to the original books? The dull, pedestrian villain (admittedly Eccleston is quite good in his 'nice-guy' persona)? The generally annoying and unrealistic lead character? The general rushed and desperate feeling? Perhaps the most irritating aspect of the movie comes from the attempt to drag depth and feeling into what could be an enjoyable escapist flick. Just because the lead character has 'angst' does not automatically mean that we're going to identify with him (and in this movie, angst is defined in terms of a 13 year old boy's inability to go out with a 20 year old). This only betrays the material's spirit and alienates the younger audience.

I thoroughly enjoyed these books as a kid and still read them occasionally. I have to say that I was shocked to see how bastardized the storyline was. It lacked the ethereal quality of the books and really messed with all aspects of the story. I only made it 30 minutes in before I couldn't take it anymore. It would've been much better if they had stuck to the book.

Really terrible!

the anti-wikipedia movie.

but maybe it is not based on the actual events happening on this community, which calls itself "free encyclopedia that anyone can edit", and indeed, it is a replacement for the internet as we know it.

for instance, HTML is not good to use on wikipedia.

if you link webpages you created yourself, this will become criminalized.

so the kids of tomorrow will use wikipedia, and maybe rely on the data collected by addicts, outlaws, and political people.

when i look at wikipedia, i can think "the dark is rising", actually they lie and call their articles "neutral point of view".

and if you try to discuss, "disrupting a community to proove a point".

freedom.

freedom to follow their rules maybe. at first, they had some merry user boxes, on occasion they reflected the colour of their early meetings...

i think DARK IS RISING somehow relates to the whole problem called "WIKIPEDIA", and which is nothing but a spook, not anyone can edit it!
people who donated money can edit it better, and will maybe be invited for adminstration. alternatively, they can show some XXX, and get invited as well.

it is like you go to a local night club, and ask for some models willing to realize your fetishes! or alternatively, to pass some secret information, and do other business as well.

fact is WIKIPEDIA founder was a *orno-spammer, and all the whitewashing will never change the history reality of his business.
then YAHOO has given him money, a lot of money.

"your kids will listen to rock music either if you like it or not, there is nothing you can do about it".

maybe they will watch some adult web channels as well?

DARK IS RISING puts criticism on the things going on in our society, especially luring unaware kids with obscure stories, fake promizes, and say they have won the hourly prize.

after watching DARK IS RISING my feeling about WIKIPEDIA has become more relaxed. simple: do not visit their site anymore!

Ah,the Walden Media recipe for success:Take beloved children's book,add inept script,overblown acting,not very impressive CGI and seizure inducing editing ala' Micheal Bay and you have the abortion that is The Seeker.

Susan Coopers books were delightful and favorites of mine when I was younger and still make a satisying quick read as an adult.A nice bridge between say The Hobbit and more advanced fantasy fiction.Combining Aurthurian myth and a warm sense of English whimsy its a intelligent,coherent with a strong sense of morality that has nothing to do with religion for once.
I wish I could say the same about this piece of shit.

Gone is the storyline of the Walker,a human who is seemingly betrayed by both sides of battle.Instead morality plays are thrown away in favor of a 1600's badly choreorgraphed kung fu fight between unconvincing brothers and giant fake looking icicles falling from the ceiling.And did I mention the large wave straight out of the cutting room floor of Day After Tommorow that plows across the countryside right into an English Manor.Thats some mojo for sure.

The Characater of Merriman has become a shitty guidence counselor who is constanly reminding Will that he is the Seeker and he only has 5 days to find the signs.He's like a Gandalf who keeps saying he just does'nt understand teenagers.You figure a ancient protector of humanity would know how to deal with humans but I guess not.

I strongly suggest reading the books and avoid seeing this movie at all costs,for its bound to do nothing but piss you off.

Very little to get excited about here... Some decent special effects are the only plus point, otherwise its run-of-the-mill childrens fantasy that could've been a lot grimmer. If the dark is rising, I dont think you'd notice...

Boring fantasy stuff for kids.

Why would one bother to make a movie adaptation of a book if one is just going to change the characters, plot, theme, and heck even the title? It makes sense if "one" is actually a boardroom of producers who want to cash in on that new childrens fantasy-book-to-movie cash machine!

And if you're going to mutilate an artists work to appeal to a general audience, could you at least try to appeal to them?

The plot was confusing, and yet infantile in it's simplicity... that takes real talent... the kind of talent inherrent in a group of product creators who come into a project and piss all over it untill it's drowned in the conflicting stench of their "inovative ways to bring in a bigger audience" and desperate panhandling fear of ever doing anything for the sake of it's own artistic merrit (cus you know those movies that try to stay to the authors origional concept flop all the time).

To compound the waste (and utter dissapointment for any fan of Susan Cooper) that this movie was tortured into (passed along to an audience at $10.00 a seat!), the actual production was bad.

The directing was dissorienting to the point of distracting from the special effects (which were basically pointlLESS as the whole movie just dared you to try to suspend disbelief). The acting had no chance given that the characters had no depth, and the action got hit hard by the crazy camera angles (it's more exciting when everythings so jumpy and dissorienting you want to vomit, kids!). But that's ok because the fights like the emotions lacked any dynamic tension.

And of course the dialogue was like vapid guys at a bar... everything would just have been much more efficient and less annoying if they'd grunted and pointed. But lets be fair, saying anything meaningful or interesting is kinda tough when you're racing through plot points so fast you can't even see them blur by.

OK Susan Cooper fan rant time:

Turning the old ones (the main characters of the movie) into warriors was nothing more than an exercise in stereotyped male jockism. The old ones of the authors imagining were Wizards, Druids... that's probably why she didn't call them "The Young Quarterback Ones" or "The Knights of the Round". Super Strength was never part of the package, stopping time was, erasing memory was. "No one likes those nancy magic types, so lets give Merlin a fucking mace! Yeah a ball on chain and he'll hit the badguy (the only one who really casts a spell) with it!"

That's right for the poor unfortunates who wasted time and/or money to see this film, Merrimen is supposed to be Merlin. Bet you couldn't tell huh!?

And making the protagonist American was because why?

Ok back to review of the movie on it's own lack of merrit:

Major inconsistancies and unresolved issues abounded. There's this whole science thing, where somehow through physics, someone has decided that light and darkness are at war... "Just upload a computer virus into the alien mother-ship"... and over and over you hear that the last sign is a soul given freely, which would lead you to believe that someone would be sacrificing something at some point...

And the long lost twin brother whose been trapped in a snowglobe for 14 years (since he was an infant), is just all perky and happy to go meet his parents as though he were coming back from vacation... but the audience knows it's just the protagonist in a wig... I don't know about you but if I'd been trapped in a snowglobe (yes a snowglobe) for 14 years without ever knowing anyone but some absolute evil (a really really bad wig), I'd be a little too traumotized to skip in the front door.

All in all, the only reason to watch this movie is so you can come on a website and rant about how much it pissed you off and annoyed you (or confused and bored you) to the cyber cosmos; which having done, I feel a little better.


Epiblog: Attempts at wit that didn't make it into theis review:

-The Seeker will make you want to seek signs too! Exit signs.*
-The Dark is rising, the lights are fading, the point is missing, this patrons leaving*
-The Dark is rising accross the world like a bad movie adaptation.*
-All things can be defeated by snowglobes.*
-The Dark is rising accross the bottom of the theatre screen as audience members desperately flee in boredom.

a mixture of bad story telling, bad charactor development and most of all bad acting.