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The Seeker: The Stench is Rising

By David W. Shelton | October 14, 2007 |

If there are any lessons to be learned from The Seeker: The Dark is Rising, then it’s how NOT to make a fantasy film.

I would have thought that by now, that fimmakers would have realized that it’s not just fantasy that moviegoers are interested in watching. It’s good fantasy.

After all, we’ve seen just how stellar The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter series have been. Whether we spent the time following the quests of Frodo or Harry, the world has seen its fair share of diminutive heroes. Indeed, we weren’t limited to the small or the young to have that kind of quality storytelling. Other recent triumphs include the stellar Stardust and the sublime Pan’s Labyrinth.

Unfortunately, though, something got lost in the mix when Christopher Paolini’s brilliant Eragon got adapted for the big screen into little more than a celluloid cesspool. I suppose the fact that I’ve never read any of the Seeker novels by Susan Cooper is a blessing in that I’m not going into the film with any sense of expectation.

No. Wait. I take that back. I do have some expectations. I expect not to be drilled into the eyeballs with the cinema version of the sound of fingernails grinding on a chalkboard. Alas, the pain began almost immediately.

When we are first introduced to young Will Stanton (Alexander Ludwig), he’s a moderately intelligent, handsome fair-haired boy who’s enchanted by the sight of a pretty girl, the beautiful Maggie Barnes (Amelia Warner). This lasts for just a few moments until his older brothers harass him to the point of frustration. Ah, the joys of having older brothers. Clearly, director David L. Cunningham was trying to get across that Will is just another normal 14-year-old who’s at the bottom of the brotherly food chain. Maybe he thinks we’re too stupid to get it, so he drills it in to the point of being… oh, yes… fingernails on a chalkboard.

The adversary in the film, the mysterious Dark Rider (Christopher Eccleston of Doctor Who and Heroes) is introduced early on, and for the life of me, I couldn’t possibly imagine an actor being any more horribly miscast. Eccleston is a capable—even brilliant—actor, of course, but in The Seeker he looks more like a life-long college student who is working toward his next prank. Oh, he’s supposed to be darkness personified? Yawn.

As the story progresses, we’re introduced to the old ones—who are charged with watching over Will’s progress. It is, after all, a thousand years since the last time the Dark Rider came along to battle the forces of light. They tell Will that he’s the Seeker, the seventh son of a seventh son, destined to save the world. He’s sent on a quest to find six thingamabobs called ‘signs’ which are supposed to endow him with ‘great power.’

Any fleeting hope of redemption here was lost once each ‘sign’ retrieval was as petty and meaningless as the next. I was told that the whole point of the signs were that they represented some form of element in the book, which was completely left out of the film. This is a pity, really, since it would have added some semblance of purpose to these little trinkets of silliness.

There were several elements missing in The Seeker: The Dark is Rising, chief of them being this tiny little thing called ‘wonder.’ Potter had it. Rings had it. Heck, even the disappointingly mediocre Chronicles of Narnia had more prevailing wonder than this film ever imagined. Without that wide-eyed wonder that we shared with Harry and Frodo, the point of sitting in that theatre seat becomes rather meaningless.

More importantly, Seeker is bereft of the element of impending doom or dread. The Potter films established the “you know who” myth early on, thus giving the Voldemort character the kind of darkness that good fantasy needs. If the filmgoer is to believe that the villain will truly destroy the world, he should at least look the part. This again illustrates the reality that Eccleston had no business wearing black feathers, much less mounting a white horse as a nemesis that would wipe out “all light” in the world.

Truthfully, though, the film didn’t need any help in sucking out the light in the universe it created. As each frame passed, it became obvious that The Seeker was completely, utterly, and hopelessly lost.

2/10

About David W. Shelton

Posts by David W. Shelton are copyright (c)2006, 2007, 2008 by the author. All rights reserved. David W. Shelton is a writer, speaker and activist in Clarksville, and serves on the Clarksville Human Relations Commission. His passions include film and complete equality for all people, and he has worked in various capacities to work toward this goal. He is currently an illustrator, graphic designer, trainer, and is the owner of Imagine Media Solutions. He is an Adobe® Certified Instructor in Photoshop®.

Web Site: http://www.skippingtothepiccolo.com/

Email: dwshelton@att.net

Sections: Arts and Leisure
Topics: Alexander Ludwig, Christopher Eccleston, David L. Cunningham, The Seeker: The Dark is Rising

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