The Seeker
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Kent Turner -- School Library Journal, 10/3/2007
In The Seeker, the film adaptation of Susan Cooper’s Newbery Honor book, The Dark Is Rising (S & S, 1973), Will, the seventh son of a seventh son, searches for the six Signs needed to restore the power of the Light against the sinister forces of the Dark. Sound familiar? Although the plot remains essentially the same, little else is left of Cooper’s original story, as the film’s title implies, and the results are anything but magical.
When we first meet Will, the hero of the story, he’s just turned 14, not 11, as in the novel. He’s now an American, instead of English, but the movie stays put in England (convincingly filmed in Romania!). Will loses two sisters in the translation; there’s no mystery man, the Walker; and the Signs are no longer mere belt buckles (to name only three of many alterations), yet menacing black birds still hover in the air.
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Photo courtesy of Twentieth Century Fox/Walden Media |
By jumping right into the action, the film simplifies the story’s setup, which, truth be told, took up nearly the first half of the novel. Will still appears in the right place at the right time to discover the hidden Signs. But instead of learning, step by step, his newfound powers, he quickly assumes the role of the chosen one, coming across as more of a lucky bystander than someone who succeeds by his own wits or (no pun intended) will.
Director David L. Cunningham previously made the controversial made-for-TV film The Path to 9/11, which raised the ire of President Clinton for its portrayal of his administration’s ineffectual handling of Al-Qaeda. With the exception of the action sequences, The Seeker’s pace feels very much like a television movie, with lingering reaction shots of the actors, ready for a commercial break.
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Photo courtesy of Twentieth Century Fox/Walden Media |
