When his family moves from the U.S. to England, young Will Stanton feels like a fish out of water. But his life is turned more upside down when Will learns that he is the last of a group of immortal warriors who have dedicated their lives to fighting the forces of the dark.
It's important, when criticising some of the more clichéd elements here - the dark versus the light, the Tolkein parallels, the quests - to bear in mind that this film is aimed at older children, not your average jaded film critic.
The Seeker: The Dark Is Rising isn't an out and out bad film, there have certainly been worse films and recently, but it's not particularly good either, suffering from ill-conceived and executed story decisions that rob it of tension or interest.
Director David L. Cunningham's proffered chills are strictly of the lightweight variety: a menacing flock of ravens, a slimy skein of snakes and a couple of mall security yobs too fat or stupid to overpower even a spindly teenager.
The Seeker is great-looking and well-acted, but unlike the Potter books and films, there's no sense that it's about anything more than the throwing-balls-of-smoke and mind-melding that we see onscreen.
Washington Post
October 05, 2007
Poor writing and production values like these bring no light to Cooper's novel -- or the audience.
A movie that should've been made shortly after its source material -- Susan Cooper's Newbery winner -- debuted in 1973. As is, it feels entirely too generic to work today.