The Seeker: The Dark Is Rising

A boy wonder is deemed the Chosen One, and, of course, he’s the last immortal among the Old Ones who can defeat the ultimate forces of darkness. Amidst choppy, video-game-like sequences of nonstop action and fortune-cookie dialogue, the teenage hero engages in five days of time traveling and clue unraveling before the predictable final battle. In this age of CGI and Harry Potter, this film—from director David L. Cunningham and screenwriter John Hodge, adapting of Susan Cooper’s second book in her three-decades-old young-adult series—doesn’t rise to the occasion.