WATCH THE TRAILER

PREMIERE'S REVIEW (posted 10/5/07)

Aspiring to be epic, The Seeker instead can't even manage to be entertaining. Yet this is the least of its sins. The real problem the PG-rated actioner faces is finding an appropriate audience and a style of its own.

Young American Will Stanton (Ludwig) has recently moved to a quaint English village with his mother, father, and many older siblings.. The smallest child in a large family, he is the oft-neglected, soft-spoken child trampled over by his older brothers — think Macaulay Culkin in Home Alone. Actually, you don't even need the prompting; the family's opening scene is so reminiscent of that 1990 film that you'll be unable to think anything else. At least this serviceable, if not original, opening firmly establishes Stanton as the everyday kid-next-door.

Ludwig is both likeable and believable as the reluctant hero Stanton, the last-born of an immortal Earth-protecting group. On his 14th birthday, he is called upon to seek and retrieve the six signs of the light (good) that are hidden throughout time and space. As the Seeker, he must act quickly. If he does not retrieve the signs within five days, darkness (evil) will take over the earth and destroy everything.

This is where things get good if you're over 13 years old, and scary as hell if you're under. In a sequence that apes Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings, a caped rider in pursuit of Stanton is revealed through close-ups of the horse's snout, its rearing hooves, and the rider's gloved hands. The only thing saving Seeker from outright mimicry is the color of the horse and the presence of two huge black hounds that join the chase. The nightmare-inducing first hour will surely turn the underage crowd against dogs, ravens, snakes, and doctors. Yes, doctors. Whereas, say, Harry Potter's foes are contained in a magical, alternate world that doesn't directly affect "normal" life, The Seeker's world is the real world and its evils are ours, making some of the scares a touch intense for what seems to be the film's target audience.

For teens and adults, this set-up hour entertains but leaves us waiting for the final battle. Unfortunately, by the end, we're still waiting. The second half of the film suddenly morphs into an unbearably slow grade-school thriller devoid of hard-fought battles; instead an evil black cloud simply lifts away the losing good guys, providing some of the most anti-climatic "death" scenes ever to have graced the screen.

As Stanton's guides and protectors, Ian McShane and Frances Conroy add a little Harry Potter–esque mentorship to the film. (Again, Conroy's Miss Greythorne looks and behaves so much like Potter's Professor McGonagall that it's distracting.) They are likeable enough but don't add much except to warn Stanton (and the audience) with dull foreshadowing like, "Our Seeker has very little time, perhaps not enough."

Too true. Based on Susan Cooper's popular novel, this film should have soared, but doesn't quite get off the ground.

— Laura Repstad