The Seeker: The Dark is Rising

Based on the book The Dark Is Rising by British author Susan Cooper, The Seeker: The Dark Is Rising is a fantasy adventure movie the whole family will enjoy.

Physicist John Stanton, played by John Benjamin Hickey, has recently moved his family from the US to accept a professorship in England. In the opening minutes of the movie John Stanton's youngest son, Will, played by Alexander Ludwig, is portrayed as a normal 13-year old boy, who is daily subjected to the teasing and taunting antics of older brothers, James, Robin, Paul and Max, played by Drew Tyler Bell, Edmund Entin, Gary Entin and Gregory Smith, respectively. The similarities between Will and other boys his age end there. In fact, Will Stanton is far from the average teenage boy.

The movie, directed by David Cunningham, is set in England during Christmas break. Will, who celebrates his birthday on the first day of the school break, receives an already used single tube sock from his brothers with the promise of the second one to arrive on Christmas and a watch from his younger sister, Gwen, played by Emma Lockhart. The gift-wrap on the watch holds a fractal pattern, which mesmerizes Will for a few seconds. This same pattern reappears the next day on a belt, having five empty notches on it as if to hold five things, sent to Will as a Christmas gift from his oldest brother, Stephen, played by Jordan J. Dale.

The reappearance of the fractal pattern and the mesmerizing effect it has on Will and other strange occurrences such as the family dogs growling in his presence, black crows hovering above him and being chased by security guards, who later turn into crows, demanding he give them the sign, begin to make the young boy uneasy. That is until he meets the "old ones."

The "old ones," Merriman Lyon, Lady Greythorne, Dawson and Old George, played by Ian McShane, Frances Conroy, James Cosmo and Jim Piddock, respectively, inform Will that he is The Sign Seeker, a chosen warrior destined to save the world. Filled with disbelief at first that he, a young boy who can't even talk to girls, Will tells the "old ones" they have the wrong kid. Even when they point out that the Sign Seeker would be the seventh son of a seventh son, Will objects saying he has only five brothers. They show him a book and tell him all the answers are in the book, which only the Sign Seeker would be able to read.

Upon learning that he had a twin brother born before him, who had been kidnapped and never found, Will begins to believe that tale told by the "old one's." He returns to meet them and begins to read the book and discovers the first of five signs hidden long ago to protect the power of the Light from the power of Darkness in the watch given to him by his sister. Travelling through time, Will searches for the remaining signs, which were created by his ancestor Thomas Stanton a thousand years earlier. As he finds each of the signs he adds them to the empty notches of his new belt for safekeeping.

The remainder of the movie, which is filled with nice visual effects for younger audiences, follows Will as he races through time to gather the six signs he will need to defeat the dark powers of the Rider, played by Christopher Eccleston, and keep the intricate balance between the light and dark, day and night.