One in a long line of films that made one irredeemable, incalculable mistake: it didn't beat Harry Potter to the theater.

| Original Score: 3/10 | Nov 27, 2020

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.

| Original Score: 5/10 | Apr 1, 2011

a lot of shouting offered up as an ineffectual camouflage to the picture's complete lack of ambition.

| Original Score: 0.5/4 | Jul 1, 2008

Sloppy, lifeless storytelling so limp it guarantees no sequels will be made.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Mar 12, 2008

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.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Jan 10, 2008

It's important, when criticising some of the more clichd 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.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Dec 7, 2007

Disappointing adaptation of a great kids' book.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Oct 22, 2007

| Original Score: 2/4 | Oct 20, 2007

Not-too-impressive CG effects and frenetic camera work but cannot mask what is--or, rather, what isn't there.

| Original Score: 1.5/4 | Oct 19, 2007

The excessive strobe effects may trigger epileptic fits, but the movie itself will induce narcolepsy.

| Oct 19, 2007

An orgy of portents that runs out of oomph.

| Oct 19, 2007

By Americanising the hero and grotesquely distorting the plot, they can only alienate the fan-base and confuse the newcomer.

| Oct 19, 2007

A moderate Potter-teen fantasy about an American kid who comes to little old England with his family (dad's on some kind of academic posting) to find that he is the boy-king leader of a group of supernatural warriors.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Oct 19, 2007

An uncanny and unholy blend of The Fifth Element, The Sixth Sense and The Seventh Seal.

| Oct 19, 2007

The Dark is Rising is one of those awful sorcery tales where a spotty young boy (Alexander Ludwig) suddenly gets to save the Earth from supernatural creeps such as Christopher Eccleston.

| Original Score: 1/5 | Oct 19, 2007

Not very likely to seize that Potter market, this is a disappointing film that starts out okay but goes rapidly downhill, thanks to rudimentary characterisation and storytelling that's designed more to accommodate gratuitous action.

| Original Score: 1.5/5 | Oct 19, 2007

A terrible bodge.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Oct 19, 2007

Cheap-looking, mostly cheerless stuff.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Oct 19, 2007

A total dud.

| Original Score: 1/6 | Oct 19, 2007

Imagine Time Bandits confined to a boring Berkshire village and drained of colour, and you can see why this pig's ear of Susan Cooper's well-received children's story went belly-up at the US box office.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Oct 19, 2007