Review: The Dark is Rising

 Print This Article |  Email This Article

I saw The Seeker: The Dark is Rising with my family last night. It’s DUMB. It’s about a kid who has been told that he is the SEEKER, a boy who must find several objects hidden throughout time, and unite them in order to defeat THE RIDER, a man of darkness. The boy fights for light. The light has to defeat the darkness, or the darkness will win. Forever.

If you were able to stay awake for the preceding paragraph, I congratulate you! You might make it through the entire movie. I had to pat myself on the back for sitting through the entire thing without yawning more than a few times. I found it to be a dull, predictable film with less than stellar special effects, poor acting, and abysmal direction.

This movie is a member of a large group of what I’d like to call “Destiny” movies that have come out already and will be coming out soon. Destiny movies are movies where the central hero is destined by luck or fate (usually by birth) for great things such as saving the world. Everyone knows it but him. For example, the Spiderwick Chronicles, The Matrix, Star Wars, and The Golden Compass, are a few movies that would fit in this category. Unfortunately, this movie does not stack up well against its brethren.

Why? First, let’s talk about the direction.

Let me tell you this: the director seems to abhor doing a scene without a slo-motion effect in it. He likes spinning the camera around the actors in a dizzying fashion to signify “time-shifting” is occurring. I think he started with a budget of $50.00 set aside for special effects, and had enough remaining when he was done for a large pizza and a six pack of beer.

I did a lot of mental head scratching during this movie. There is a lot of stuff that I think was done because some moron thought it would “look cool” without thinking about things, such as “logic” or “reality”. For example, during a huge winter storm, a plastic globe with hundreds of large bouncy balls falls over and the bouncy balls, well they bounce down some steps and into the street in slo-mo fashion (of course!) and bounce up against the rider’s horse’s feet. My only thought is why would someone store a big huge globe of bouncy balls on their front porch? Duh!

Another thing: the hero goes time tripping into battle scenes and into bars and stuff, and the people in the other times basically don’t stop what they are doing. If I was, say, a Viking or a dude or dudette who lived in the 1600’s, I think I would stop and stare if I saw a 14 year old boy wearing jeans and a red coat and short blonde hair came wandering into my vision.

Finally, I have never, and I mean never, watched a movie for the first time and seen something that I knew without certainty was a miniature scale model of a town being filmed from overhead. Until this movie, I mean. Argh. I think I could have done better special effects with Legos and a Barbie dolls (not that I play with them) .

My daughter’s comments after the movie: “Well, I’m glad we finished watching it, but I never ever want to see that again!”

My wife’s review: “I’ll give it three stars out of four.” I should have asked her if we were in the same movie….

My review:
Acting Rating:
Really uneven acting. Some of the kids, for example were quite good, unfortunately, most of the better actors and actresses don’t spend much time on the screen.
Story Rating:
I’m sure the book this is based on is quite good. Otherwise, why would they have made this movie? Oh wait, don’t answer that.
Direction Rating:
Special Effects Rating:
Largely not impressive.
Overall Rating:

If you are so inclined, you can view the trailer here.

Share, Promote and Bookmark to:

Related Entries:

1. Review: The Dark Knight
2. Review: Day Watch
3. Review: Jumper
4. Review: Slither on HDDVD
5. Review: Stardust on DVD