• Starring: Alexander Ludwig, Christopher Eccleston, Ian McShane
  • Summary: The Dark is Rising tells the story of Will Stanton, who learns on the eve of his 11th birthday that he is actually the last of the "Old Ones," a group of immortal warriors and guardians dedicated to fighting the forces of the Dark. The Dark is amidst its last great Rising to defeat the Light and take free will from the human race forever. Will, having been born with a great gift of power, is called upon a monumental heroic quest. (Walden Media) Expand
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 4 out of 21
  2. Negative: 6 out of 21
  1. Reviewed by: Gianni Truzzi
    67
    The books' magic was rooted in its ties to Arthurian legend and British folklore, grandiose elements which Cunningham and Hodge have stripped.
  2. Reviewed by: Stephen Farber
    50
    The film plods along without a lot of excitement or inspiration.
  3. 38
    A kid unversed in other name-brand fantasy movies might go for The Seeker, but in 2007 it's redundant, a puttering Potter without wit and whimsy.

See all 21 Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 6 out of 30
  2. Negative: 23 out of 30
  1. JCAndrew
    10
    The Seeker: The Dark is Rising -- Cherishing -- First of all, lets find out about this film: Its title= Seeker, seeker means by example when a device in a missile that locates a target by sensing some characteristic of the target, as heat emission. Dark= well everyone knows what that means, rising= means to get up from a lying, sitting, or kneeling posture; assume an upright position. Now, if you combine those definitions, then see what happens. Seeker, dark, rising. Think about it, the seeker is obviously the child that seeks something. Maybe dark, or darkness, which is rising. At the eve of 11 years old, Will finds himself the last of the immortal's and uses the destiny of his kind to destroy the darkness that rises ahead which plans to banish Will from the human race. Now that is what I call a story. If you think like how I think before I saw it when you guessed it is worth a 6 then you are wrong, the story deserves so but there is never a dull moment, no kidding. A dark and fascinating film with visual effects beyond human use and reach, you would have to pay millions of dollars for those effects. It has loads of entertainment, it doesn't just have what the story gives you now. It passes by with way more plot's and stories happening. So please, if you think there isn't anything good playing right now because I also think the same, when this releases, go see it. It is worth it. Overall very good. But literally it has a lot of flaws, like the acting, dialogue, key concept, action. But I just say 10 when it deserves a 6 because I know there will not be many high rated reviews for the upcoming future, so just to balance the film's position. Expand
    • 1 of 1 users said yes
  2. This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. After seeing such great fantasy adaptations like Harry Potter, The Lord of the Rings, and The Chronicles of Narnia, other fantasy novels were trying to be successful. Some of them grossed $100 million dollars at first, but only one of them flopped and is why we get 20th Century Fox and Walden Media's The Seeker: The Dark is Rising, based on a 5-book masterpiece by Susan Cooper. It tells the story about Will Stanton, a 14-year old typical kid, who learns that he is the last of the Old Ones called the Light who spent many years trying to defend themselves from the Dark. The Rider appears and tries to destroy the Light and in order to defeat him, Will must find and guard the six signs of the Light and only them can they win the battle against the Dark. OK. Some of you already know what the story was about since it was done a lot of times and I have no time to waste, so time for my opinion. Some of you won't believe this, but I've never read the book series to begin with, but with this being an adaptation, it's just sort of a bland movie. Not good, but not terrible. It's just a mediocre fantasy movie and here's the reason why. 1. Characterization: I'm not going to talk about characters like Will Stanton, Merriman, Mrs. Greythorne, The Rider, Maggie, and the rest of the characters. They did okay at their performances, but there were a lot of flaws in this movie and only one of them counts. In the book, Will Stanton was 11 years old and was kind of shy and a bit of a loner. In the movie, Will Stanton was changed from 11 year old British boy to a 14 year old American teenager and he is also shy, but kind of typical and expresses his feelings in the most irritating and emotional way. That's a nice way to change so much, 20th Century Fox. THe rest of the characters were okay, but Maggie was changed from a maid to a love interest of Will, the black horse was changed into the white horse and that's all I'm going to say about the flaws 2. The pacing: It is just plain awful. The first 20 minutes were okay since they tried to show some of Will and his family and the rest of the scenes turned out fine, but the rest of the storyline had to just rush towards the end. Of course, I'm not talking about the CGI in this movie. They were OK, but not given enough screen time. The dialogue doesn't quite cover it up due to its weak storytelling and shaky cameras. and 3. The direction: It's just plain mediocre. Not horrible, but not that good either. Some of the sets were too cheesy and bland to begin with, but that's not worth saying much. It tried its best to bring the potential of the book, but fails miserably with oversued clichés and like I said, the rushed storyline. The only aspect that I liked about the direction was the action sequences. Even though they weren't included in the book, they seemed to be very interesting and very good, IMO. The Seeker: The Dark is Rising isn't a horrible movie, but it doesn't even hold the candle to the book. It had decent characters and very good action scenes, but with a rushed storyline and overused clichés, it could have been better. If kids like fantasy movies, then this is worth a DVD watch, but as for others, read the book. 5/10 Expand
    • 0 of 0 users said yes
  3. Adrian
    3
    Hey, you three JCs, stop trying to bump up the user score; that's cheating. Anyway, this was fairly engaging at first, but quickly turned out to be a cheese-fest of wannabe epic fantasy movies. That lost it for me there. Expand
    • 0 of 0 users said yes

See all 30 User Reviews

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