The Seeker: The Dark Is Rising

Plot synopsis:
Will Stanton (Alexander Ludwig) is a day away from his fourteenth birthday. As the Stanton children walk home, Miss Greythorne (Frances Conroy), the local mistress of the Manor, and her Butler Merriman Lyon (Ian McShane) invite the siblings to a Christmas party. Later, two farmers, Dawson (James Cosmo) and Old George (Jim Piddock), whom Will does not know, arrive at his house with a large Christmas tree ordered by the family. The farmers know Wills name, wish him a happy birthday, and predict bad weather despite the clear sky. Wills birthday is so close to Christmas that everyone in his large family ignores it except for his little sister Gwen (Emma Lockhart), who gives him his only birthday present (a Casio G-Shock Mudman wristwatch). The family has moved from the United States to a small English village and one of his brothers has arrived home for the holidays and displaces Will to the attic. For a Christmas present, Will buys Gwen an enigmatic stone pendant at the local mall. Two suspicious security guards accuse him of shoplifting and take him to their office. Alarmingly, whilst questioning Will under the room's flickering lights, the guards metamorphose into rooks. They attack Will, but he manages to escape, accidentally using his powers for the first time. Will begins to experience more odd incidents and receives a strange and Celtic-looking belt from his oldest brother, Stephen (Jordan J. Dale).At the Manor Christmas party, Will once again sees Dawson and Old George who seem to know him well. Miss Greythorne and Merriman debate about when and how to approach Will about his destiny. Maggie Barnes (Amelia Warner), an attractive local girl appears at the party and Will becomes upset when one of his older brothers approaches her and begins chatting to her. Will leaves the Manor, and an ominous figure mounted on a white horse and accompanied by dogs chases Will. As the ominous figure prepares to kill Will, who is currently no match for him, Miss Greythorne, Merriman, Dawson, and Old George suddenly appear and save Will. Merriman names the threatening figure as The Rider, who warns them all that in five days' time his power The Dark will rise. The four adults are the last of the Old Ones ancient warriors who serve The Light and take Will on a walk through time and space to a place called the Great Hall, which in the present day is the church the Stantons attend. Will is the last of the Old Ones to have been born: he is the seventh son of a seventh son whose power begins to ascend on his fourteenth birthday, though Will disputes this idea because he believes he is the sixth son. Will is The Seeker: the sign-seeker who must locate six Signs whose possession will grant The Light power over The Dark. The Rider is also seeking them. Will returns home to his attic room and falls and twists his ankle. The doctor who calls is The Rider in disguise but he is recognized by Will. The Rider demonstrates his powers on Wills ankle by alternately healing it and making it much worse before restoring it to its injured state. Will discovers he has a lost twin brother named Tom, who, as a baby, mysteriously disappeared one night and was never found. Merriman instructs Will on his powers, which include summoning superhuman strength, commanding light and fire, telekinesis, stepping through time, and the unique knowledge to decipher an ancient text in the Book of Gramarye.Will returns to The Great Hall, and learns the form each sign will take. Will reveals the first sign within Gwens pendant. As the sign-seeker, Will travels through time to find the next four signs. The Rider enlists a mysterious figure to help him get the signs from Will. When Will's brother invites Maggie to their home, she reveals some of her powers to Will. Will reveals his affections for her, saying he felt an instant connection with her. He tells her he has been thinking of her constantly. The Rider also tricks Will's older brother Max into helping him. The spell over Max is finally broken when Will uses his great strength to give Max a concussion. By the fifth day, The Dark that The Rider commands has now gained tremendous power and begins to attack the village with a terrible blizzard. Will locates the fifth sign but without the sixth sign, the Dark continues to rise. Maggie is revealed to be the mysterious witch helping the Rider in exchange for immortal youth. She is betrayed by him when she fails to get the fifth sign and ages rapidly, disintegrating into a flood of water. The Old Ones and Will seek sanctuary in the Great Hall, where the Rider cannot enter unless invited. However, The Rider's final trick (impersonating the voices of Will's mother and father, as well as Gwen) gains him access to The Great Hall. The Rider reveals that he has trapped Tom, whom The Rider mistook for The Seeker and kidnapped, within a glass sphere. He sends Will into an evil dark cloud. As he enters, Will solves the riddle of the sixth sign: he himself is the sixth sign. With all six signs identified The Rider cannot touch nor harm Will. Using his power over the dark, Will banishes both The Rider imprisoning the evil figure within one of his own glass spheres and The Dark. The sphere disappears into murky water. Will and Tom are reunited and return to their family.

Tags: paranormal, good versus evil, stupid, flashback

Review:
Key elements left out, characterizations gutted, the mythos it was based on trivialized.After such great adaptations as LotR, Narnia and the Potter books to see this classic ruined was a sad sight.The books concepts depend on British folktales and legends (Arthurian based) and the movie seems to have tossed that aside in an attempt to woo American audiences.
If you have been a fan of Susan Cooper's beloved book series since you were a kid, saw the preview and thought "Maybe it won't be as bad as it seems...", then I weep for your broken childhood love.
If so, he failed miserably because the massive changes made this look more like a bad Harry Potter knock-off than a separate film.
I suspect that the filmmakers were trying to make a Harry Potter-like film out of Susan Cooper's story so they could avoid copyright infringement.
My father, who has never read the books, said the movie was awful, and I would dearly love the home address of the people who destroyed my favorite fantasy series..
There were about 3 things about Susan Cooper's magnificent book that were preserved in this movie: a couple of names (but certainly not all of them--where was the difficulty in letting his father be named "Roger" rather than changing it to "John"??), a rook feather in the snow, and...
The last time a superb book-turned-rubbish-movie angered me this much was when I was forced to see Jim Carrey prance around as Count Olaf, who should've been one of the greatest villains to scare the wits out of little kids everywhere.I'd like to say I'm done with adaptations, but The Golden Compass is coming out, and that one looks like more than the gaffer actually read the bloody book..
Should one be surprised considering the director announced in the past that he thought the books did not give good movie material and that he dislikes fantasy/children's movies to begin with?
Well, Susan Cooper's book series the Rising of the Dark sequence was written long before Harry Potter and it has all the material for a good movie.
I wouldn't trust the writer nor the director to sit the right way on a toilet.If you ever read Ian Fleming's work you'd know that the books and film stories are totally different but they manage to convey the ruthlessness, the style and epic quality of the books and add their own style of fun to generate the longest running successful sequels in history.With the care and attention to detail put into the filming of the Lord of the Rings I honestly thought we were past the limitations that dogged fantasy films in older days but Fox proved us wrong, I can only surmise, that the financial and marketing people don't read, watch good movies or even have decent IQ's.How is this for a financial idea: Susan Cooper wrote a 5 book masterpiece that works for kids and adults alike.
Hmm who do we get to produce it, screen-write it and direct it for us.I know, how about we get a successful producer, can we get the one who did that massively acclaimed hit "Legally Blonde 2", a screenwriter who can't write for children and a director who admits he doesn't like the fantasy genre.I'm trying to work out if movies qualify under the Sale of Goods Act here in Britain.
What a waste of time and effort.I can't believe for one moment that Susan Cooper has authorised this movie which is supposed to be based on her book.
I just hope that people new to this series will want to read the books if the first taste they have is this abysmal looking film.It seems the studio which produced this film have come up with the golden goose egg of formulas for those too stupid to appreciate the myths and legends in the book.
Movie adaptations of much-loved books can rarely satisfy the fans, but even making allowances for that, this is a deeply disappointing film.
People not familiar with Susan Cooper's "Dark is Rising" cycle will find this simply another lackluster and occasionally bewildering teen fantasy film, while anyone who read and enjoyed Cooper's books would be well-advised to steer clear of the film altogether: it will simply make them angry.The attraction of Cooper's books is that they are both mythologically and psychologically powerful.
Even the quintessentially English character of the stories was apparently judged too threatening or complex for American audiences, so the protagonist has been Americanized and the setting reduced to some cutesy chocolate-box Hollywood vision of rural England.Probably the only bright point of the movie is Alexander Ludwig, in the part of Will Stanton.
It's educational to contrast the subtlety and effectiveness with which Cooper reveals her world in the books with the kind of ham-fisted lay-it-on-with-a-trowel exposition that the makers of the film considered necessary.The result is a rambling mess where the hero stumbles through his required tasks - all of which fall more or less into his lap without any great dramatic tension - until the predictable last-minute rout of the forces of darkness.
Screenwriter John Hodge must take much of the blame for his insipid and amateurish screenplay, yet his track record - including the excellently- written "Shallow Grave" and "Trainspotting" - makes me wonder if he contrived this disaster all himself, or if he was under pressure from director Cunningham (whose own resume might have led one to predict that he would make something like this) to dumb everything down for the benefit of some imaginary audience of American teenagers with single-digit IQs.There's no reason to waste time on this film (I saw it on an airplane).
If you know how to read, you'd be vastly better off spending the time and the money on the original books..
The reason why I ended up watching the whole thing is because I was at a friend's who rented it (she likes fantasy films) and I didn't want to be rude by walking out.
my guess is the movies producers were doing an experiment to see just how much you could change a book (a relatively short and easy book at that) and still keep the "based on Susan coopers: the dark is rising" in the by line.
when i read the book i thought wow this would make a great movie and hoped for one ever since i was ten.
As a consequence, the stories told on the screen never seem quite as complete as the stories we remember reading.Even when a story set in the past is updated to work within the paradigm of the modern world - as "The Seeker" has done to "The Dark Is Rising" - the movies themselves can sometimes be quite enjoyable.
It is instead a vile piece of trash that deserves no better than to be sealed inside a steel drum and buried in the middle of a mountain in a deep pit lined with 40 feet of lead.Even if you couldn't care less about offending the pedantic demands of the fantasy nerds and the nostalgia warriors - as the makers of this film have done - a good movie still demands a few essential qualities.1) The film must be acted well.
Here, each scene just barely gives you enough time to reflect on how bad the movie is or hate yourself for wasting time on it.Oh, I'm sure there's a lot more that could be said about just how awful "The Seeker" is, but if I spend any more time thinking about it I'll find myself stabbing holes in my leg with a pair of scissors.On the flip side, if you're the kind of person who likes to sit around and make fun of bad movies with your friends, there is some value to be had here.
My only wish is that this horror of a movie hasn't put off another production company from making sometime in the future a true-to-the-book version of 'The Dark is Rising', a version that will capture the true Englishness, magic and power of the original story..
Having read the book, like many others, I had hopes that this adaption would be well made and open the door to sequels of the complete series.
but setting aside the issue of this being a bad book adaptation, it was also a badly made movie.There were too many plot holes, and what plot there was made no sense and seemed rushed in the end.
I don't think you will see anymore of these made into movies, as the books are fun, but they follow a linear sequence in same way the Harry Potter series does.
My family and I like fantasy movies, but this one is a complete waste of time.
He's got days to find them, before the Rider who fights for the Dark comes to full strength....As I said, I've not read the novel, but seeing the movie several things spring to mind.
There are a couple of so-called twists in the mix, but they are too obvious to work effectively.The acting isn't too bad, with special mention going to Ian McShane, as one of the elder ones but try as they might, they can't save the movie.As the first of a trio of fantasy movies coming out, the others being Stardust and The Golden Compass, I hope this is not a sign of things to come..
So when I heard that a film was to be made, I was looking forward to either seeing it at the cinema or getting it on DVD, but having read several comments of people who are ardent fans of Susan Cooper as I am, it left me feeling a bit deflated that such wonderful book with lovely characters and gripping story lines could be ruined by people who are in the film business or like to think they are, just to make themselves a quick buck.
The Seeker:The Dark is Rising is an intolerable,pathetic and crap movie and I want the money I wasted to see this movie back.This crappy ''film'' tries to use a dark and sinister tone to make us forget we are watching a stupid movie specially made for very young kids.The main actor could not have been chosen worse.Alexander Ludwig does not have any charisma or grace.The Seeker is only worried in using special effects(very bad done,specially from a major movie,by the way) and there is not something which really justifies its presence and the things which happen on this movie do not have a logical connection.For example,the main character has a lot of powers which are not used on an intelligent way.As many other crappy movies,The Seeker is made by scenes which only happen and not by a story which is really developed.Also,this film criminally wastes three excellent actors like Christopher Eccleston,Ian McShane and Frances Conroy.The Seeker represented,for me,an enormous waste of time.This is my advice:do not waste money on this crap..
Anyone with epilepsy cannot see the movie as the final battle is nit so much a fight but lots of flashing lights while people move, it hurt my head a hell of a lot just watching it.The Dark is Rising is certainly not going to be the next big fantasy series, so for now Potter's crown is very safe.
I must've been nine or ten when I read "Over Sea, Under Stone" by Susan Cooper and I was immediately enthralled by it and subsequently ploughed right through the entire Dark Is Rising sequence."The Dark Is Rising" was certainly my favourite book and I remember how completely immersed I became in Will's fight against the Dark.As such, when this movie was announced I was desperately hoping it would capture the enchantment I felt as a kid while reading this book, much as Steve Kloves managed to do with the Harry Potter series.
Alas, this was not to be the case: The entire plot was completely abhorrent to Susan Cooper's original prose and somehow - and I'm not sure how given the material they had to work with - managed to stamp out and eradicate every bit of wonder, magic, excitement and mystery to the extent that the plot was barely fathomable, the characters distinctly lacking in depth and the dialogue simply felt kitch and unfulfilled.While I acknowledge there is always going to be some deviation between a book and it's screenplay, there is really no excuse for this level of sacrilege.
I had not read the books before seeing this film, but even then I could tell there was something definitely wrong.The film tells the tale of Will Stanton, an American exchange student in Britain (though by the scenery in the film it looks more like Germany) who discovers that he is the last of the Old Ones, a magical order sworn to fight off dark forces.
The camera-work pirouettes like a bad apprentice for Terry Gilliam, the editing is about as slapdash and rottenly patched as could be imagined by amateurs, and the actors look like they're either not equipped to know what to do with their characters, or if you're, for example, Ian McShane, just don't care (unless your Christopher Eccleston and you decided to quit Dr. Who to do snapping good work like this, as a...
Good marks for special effects, but that is about all the movie has going for it except that the actor portraying hero Will Stanton does a credible acting job.
I have never read the novels, and at 71 years of age would not have occasion to do so unless I wanted to make a comparison of the book and the movie.
Shame on Walden Media for allowing these hacks to gut and "rework" what was one of the greatest YA stories ever and deep-sixing what could have been a film series to rival "Narnia" and "Harry Potter" -- that is, if they'd only retained the original characters and their ages, had kept the English and Welsh settings, and had not excised the "non-Christian" pagan Celtic motifs and legends out of the story.This is one of the most crushing disappointments ever, and I doubt I'll ever pay any money to see a Walden Media production ever again (even the Narnia movies).
As to all those bellyaching because the film was different from the Susan Cooper series, I say, "Grow up!" Making a movie is completely different from writing a book.
The boy Ludwig was convincing and I should think will be in great demand from now on.To be able to create a thoroughly engaging movie without any sex, bad language or gratuitous violence in this day and age is remarkable.But then, I'm a simple man and love it when I can walk out of a theater with a 'clean' feeling, not having been shocked and violated.This was fun and I'd recommend it to anyone!.
I can understand why they made some of the changes they did, otherwise it would have looked even more like a Harry Potter clone than it already does (though in actuality the Harry Potter series is a "Dark" series clone, since the Cooper books came out a long time before Harry was a gleam in JKR's eye).I wish they hadn't made Will an American, and there wasn't any need to put in the love interest angle (it didn't add anything to the story, IMO) but in the end I don't think it matters.
I was lucky my husband noticed the poster for "The Seeker" when we were in the theater the other day to see "The Kingdom." He'd seen some publicity for "Seeker" a long time back and was surprised it had been released with no advertising and no critical reviews (at least here in Houston.) While some scenes are perhaps too scary for young children, it qualifies as a good family movie for those with preteens and above--one that even two adults like my husband and me can enjoy without kids.
Fire on the mountain will find the harp of gold...played to wake the sleepers, oldest of the old...should I continue?I've been reading this book since I was 14, at least once a year - and I'm now 45!!!I was amazed to know there was a movie.
The sad thing is, you can't watch this movie and possibly come out of it thinking that ANY book could be that horrible.
I read Susan Cooper's five Dark is Rising books as a teenager and loved them.
It was definitely worth my time and money(I might even go and see it again)and I would strongly recommend this movie, especially to all Harry Potter fans because even though it's not as good, it still takes you on a thrilling ride full of excitement.
The only good thing to say about this film is, it has Christopher Eccleston in it, so maybe next time when they re-make it better, set in England with out the stupid commercial, American-ness they'll have him again..
And I've just watched it, and prove to be rather satisfying with this story, although I have to admit, there's something amiss in this movie.I don't know how good the book is, 'coz I haven't read it.
If you have no recollection of the books, like me, its a good movie.
I have never read the book so i didn't really know what to expect but i watched this film and i looked it.
Yes, I read the books as a kid, and again before I saw this movie.
I did not read the book and maybe that is why I still enjoyed the movie.
Those who have not read the book like me would want to go and watch this movie for entertainment.
The story is like any fantasy movies.
Not the plot - I like fantasy stories and will try to get hold of a copy of Susan Cooper's book now I've read such great things about it on here.