THE SEEKER review

Reader Comments

1. Andrew Cunningham 10/05/2007 @ 2:15am

   If you’d actually read the book, you’d be setting everyone involved in this fucker on FIRE.
   Judging from the trailer only, which I admit isn’t completely fair, all they kept were the names. Fucking awful.

2. Grady Hendrix 10/05/2007 @ 8:32am

   Sorry to sound so extreme: but ARE YOU ON CRACK? This thing was awful. I watched this movie feeling like slugs were crawling into my eyes. Threadbare, ham-fisted and patronizing this movie wasn’t a sign that “fluent film language isn’t dead to films geared toward children.” It was a sign of the apocalypse. If I was a kid watching this movie and someone told me it was my own very special multi-million dollar present from Hollywood straight to me, I would have slashed their throat. I’m hoping no one goes to see it this weekend because if kids see this kind of unctuous garbage they’re going to pick up guns and take to the streets and kill us all.

   “Somehow, Cunningham manages to wring the proper threat level from all this,” huh? What? Where? The only threat I saw was Christopher Eccleston prancing about on a pony, waggling a sword and farting out great plumes of black, CGI gas. There was a nice, NIGHTWATCH-inspired scene in the mall security office at the front of the film and that gave me some hope that this movie might be good, but that hope was dashed about two scenes later as it became clear that the director wanted to make some kind of clumsy statement about puberty and that he was going to make sure the audience knew this by having every! single! character! yammer on incessantly about the lead actor’s impending journey into manhood. The entire wee British village was so invested in this kid’s hormones that I expected them to flip him upside down, yank his pants down and count the hair on his balls.

   Not that the books this is based on are any kind of masterpieces. I tried to read them several times as a kid and never got past the fact that Susan Cooper has a tin ear for names. A battle between Light and Dark? The Old Ones versus the Walker and the Black Rider in a struggle for the...wait for it...Four Things of Power? Please, someone buy this woman a thesaurus.

   I know your review is qualified and is an attempt to take Walden Media seriously as an artistic entity with a unified aesthetic rather than a gaggle of whores with no higher purpose in mind than sucking as much money as possible out of the pockets of anyone they can get their sticky fingers on, but to see anyone give the slightest word of praise to this bag of kack just makes me see red. I had to sit through this thing to review it and rarely have I so wanted to stab my own eyes out.

3. Ard Vijn 10/05/2007 @ 9:11am

   Hel-lo Grady,

   There’s no need to hold back, we’re all friends here. Just say what you REALLY think!

4. Jim 10/05/2007 @ 9:18am

   Andrew Cunningham - No, I haven’t read the book, and don’t necessarily deem such source material as vital when reviewing adaptations.  When I do happen to be familiar with source material, I comment on it.  But even them, books and films are apples and oranges.

   Grady Hendrix - to answer your question, nope, I’m not on crack.  I think it’s fair to say this film wasn’t made with you in mind, although I can understand your re-action to it.  It just so happens that if I was a kid, I would dig this.  It wouldn’t change my life of anything, but it would certainly outrank a lot of the more pandering entries into the adolescent fantasy genre, Walden Media produced and otherwise.

5. Grady Hendrix 10/05/2007 @ 9:48am

   Hey, Jim. You’re not on crack? Well, darn! Based on your review of this flick I thought you had a direct line on the good stuff and I was going to ask that you share your connection. Oh, well. Kudos to you for sitting through this junk and not coming out of it with your faith in humanity completely destroyed and a desire to kill, kill, kill, kill, kill burning in your heart.

   Every time a studio asks children to open their mouths and say “Ah” so they can direct a stream of putrid, plastic drivel like this into it I just go completely berserk. It’s definitely my problem.

6. Opus 10/05/2007 @ 10:32am

   Sigh… I’ve heard very few good things about this one. Between this and the recent “Stardust” adaptation, my faith in fantasy adaptations has taken a bit of a hit.

7. Kurt Halfyard 10/05/2007 @ 10:59am

   Walden Media?  Ugh! That first Narnia film they put out was nearly end to end watered down crap (especially when compared with quite similarly themed/structured Pan’s Labyrinth which is much closer to a perfect version of that type of story.)

   I was however a fan of Stardust.  I found lots in there to love in a Joss Whedon sort of ‘fun’ way.

8. Glasswalker33 10/05/2007 @ 5:28pm

   I remember reading all five books in the Dark Is Rising cycle when I was in high school.  Years later I can’t remember much detail from them, other than loving them when I did read them, and the books instilling into me a desire to learn more about Wales, and how to properly pronounce Welsh (especially names).

   I have yet to see anything (after moderate searching) to indicate that there will be more than just this one movie.  That alone is doing the book series a severe injustice.  The best analogy I can come up with is what Bakshi did to The Lord of the Rings.  I’m not in any way implying that The Dark Is Rising cycle is anywhere near the level of LotR, but hopefully it gets the idea across.

   The trailer, and website don’t feel like the people associated with the movie read the book at all, let alone know that there are other books to it.

   I’m glad to see more fantasy-styled movies coming out, even if they do turn out to be dreck.  At least it gives us a little more variety.

9. Rhythm-X 10/05/2007 @ 11:06pm

   Walden, to their credit, made AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS, Jackie’s best Hong Kong movie since the 90s, never mind that it’s not from Hong Kong.

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