The books' magic was rooted in its ties to Arthurian legend and British folklore, grandiose elements which Cunningham and Hodge have stripped.

The movie has a lot going for it, including wonderful sets and locations - in Bucharest, Romania! - that create a heightened-reality English hamlet with pub, church, manor and shops (make that shoppes!). And the lead actor, Ludwig, registers the growth spurts of the stripling hero with the sensitivity and precision of an emotional seismograph.

This is a reasonable choice for bored tweens - as long as they don't demand too much magic from their movies.

At its best, The Seeker is a pretty vivid fantasy book come-to-life; it does a decent, passable job of adding to the canon of kid-lit flicks.

Starts out with promise but staggers under the weight of trying to take on too much. The tone is murky: The story attempts to blend adolescent angst with fantasy adventure, and the result is rather clunky.

The film plods along without a lot of excitement or inspiration.

Slick, good-looking, cluttered pic won't please fans of novelist Susan Cooper's original "The Dark Is Rising" sequence. But then, they are mostly grown-ups by now, and this very Hollywood-style adaptation of a very English book is aimed squarely at tweens.

Feels passé and lacks a charismatic lead. Too bad Daniel Radcliffe is an only child.

Whether you fully embrace the Harry Potter phenomenon or simply live with it, there's no question that J. K. Rowling is an imaginative story-spinner. The trouble is that she has ruined the field for the legions of the second-rate.

Though stylishly produced, this clumsy parable will probably engender more boredom than sequels.

A mostly entertaining movie with built-in appeal to young audiences. The good news for parents is that it won't put them to sleep.

A movie that should've been made shortly after its source material -- Susan Cooper's Newbery winner -- debuted in 1973. As is, it feels entirely too generic to work today.

This movie is a particular disappointment. Although The Seeker is in Walden's tradition of positive storytelling, John Hodge's script is guilty of downright goofy utterances on occasion.

From its less-than-special effects to its rushed ending, this whole endeavor is a lazy, wasted emasculation of a beloved series deserving of more thoughtful treatment. Guess they have four more books left to get it right. Oh, joy.