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Seeker: The Dark Is Rising, The
Ian McShane and Christopher Eccleston lurk around in this fantasy about a kid with the power to save the world from a pitch black apocalypse
With Warner Bros having made a mint from the Harry Potter films, but 2007 being the year when the last of JK Rowling's books was published, a scramble took place to find more youth-oriented fantasy to bring to the screen. The first of the many attempts to snare some of the Potter dollar is this deeply disappointing adaptation of the second of British author Susan Cooper's classic 'Dark Is Rising' sequence. Published between 1965 and 1977, the five book series was an elaborate and mature epic about the eternal struggle between the forces of The Light (represented by the Old Ones) and the forces of The Dark, rich in British folklore and Arthurian myth. To sex up the scenario for the all-important US multiplex market, this adaptation of the second in the series Americanises its hero, Will Stanton (newcomer Ludwig), and pretty much gives him superpowers, exaggerating the abilities he was endowed with in the books. Such changes wouldn't be a problem, were the film not so underwhelming. At the hands of director David L Cunningham (making his first big feature after TV work and one straight-to-DVD movie), it's a visually slick, frequently jarring and mostly soulless affair saddled with a poor script. The screenwriting, handled by former Danny Boyle collaborator John Hodge (Trainspotting, The Beach), leaves most of the characters with very little to do, lending the whole a kind of plotless inertia. Ian McShane, playing Old One Merriman Lyon, is ostensibly a mentor figure to Will, but is in fact merely an exposition engine, narrating and explaining what's going on, when those goings on should be explained in the actual narrative. The film's opening is very confusing. We meet Will at his school, which looks like it's in America, but when he gets on a bus with his brothers and one sister, we're told it's England. Then we get a long shot of the village where they live and it doesn't look anything other than eastern European (the film was shot in Romania). Presumably American studios think European villages are generic, but if you're a Brit, this is discombobulating. Anyway, the Stantons are Americans, but have relocated to England, where Will's physics teacher dad (Hickey) has got a job. It's Christmas, and all the Stantons are getting together at home - Will, his five brothers and a sister. It's not the seasonal excitement that's getting to Will though, or his hormones (he's been making eye contact with a girl on the bus, disconcertingly played by the 25-year-old Amelia Warner). Instead his perceptions seem to be shifting. He's subsequently informed by Merriman, who lives locally like a kind of lord of the manor, that he's the last of the Old Ones, and he has the power to find six 'signs'. In doing so, he will save the world from a shadowy apocalypse that would be wrought by the Rider (Eccleston), lord of the forces of Dark. Will's senses are attuned to finding the Signs, but they are scattered through time. Luckily, he has the power to turn time to reach them. If it actually felt like this time-travel device was deployed interestingly in the story it could be hunky-dory, but it just feels like Will's ability is an excuse for an another set-piece involving period scrappers and special effects. It just all gets a bit boring. Will alternately sulks about responsibility and revels in his powers ("Awesome!"), while Merriman and the other Old Ones, Miss Greythorne (Conroy), Mr Dawson (Cosmo) and Old George (Piddock), stand around muttering gruff encouragement ("You are the Seeker Will. The future of the human race rests with you."). How this bunch of stumblebums ever defeated the Dark in an earlier conflict isn't clear. Eccleston, meanwhile, appears in disguise as a genial village doctor, but mostly gets to do lots of rearing on his horse and glower in his Dark Rider mode. Considering the world is supposedly at stake, there's absolutely no sense of urgency, no sense of the travails in the village having a wider bearing. It is a waste of Cooper's book. Verdict 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 than provide an interesting narrative. |
