The problem with the book THE DARK IS RISING is that the descriptions of all the bizarre space/time bending as well as all the action are so vague that it's impossible to conjure a mental picture of what's going on. That spelled doom for the film before it was even made. How do you render something that can't even be properly put into words? Not that this film even attempted to be an accurate rendering of the book. It's really only inspired by the book. The filmmakers took extensive liberties. But beyond all that, it's just a bad film. The kid is terrible, as is the usually sharp Frances Conroy. Even Ian McShane comes off badly. To sum, don't waste your time or your $11 on this crap.

If you really want something festive, go read the series. While some changes are nice when bringing it to the big screen, there was no need to butcher the books. Harry Potter managed to pretty much keep the tone of the books. Sadly, they ripped and mauled and transformed this into something that needed a new title because it's loosely based and a disgrace to the actual book. BTW this is not the first book in the series, this is the 2nd book. Once again Hollywood decided our children are too dumb to be able to handle a movie in another time period in order to bring them in. So bring on all the modern conveniences and dysfunctional families and the throw out the Arthurian roots while you change around all the characters to suit this brave new world. I am very disgusted with it.

Great movie....Gotta see it, great movie, exciting but not too scary for kids. Cool special effects...Just so ya know, any of you book fans....Its very different, still great!

They completely ignored the actual book when making this movie. The characters had the same names, and they said something about the Old Ones; those were the only similarities. If they had changed it and still made a great movie, I wouldn't care, but it, honestly, sucked. The best part was that Christopher Eccleston (the ninth Doctor from Doctor Who) played the Rider, who pretended to be a doctor. lol I had hoped the movie would be great, and I would love it, and everything would be fine. And maybe the sign of fire would exist. What's up with that? A soul instead of fire... Anyway. The cinematography was actually pretty cool. I remember when Will is running from the Rider in the woods and they show him upside down. It was cool. Some of the editing is... I guess 'choppy' is a good word. The Stanons are supposed to be kind, loving people, even when they tease each other. In this movie, they just seem mean. Sadly, even childhood memories can't redeem this one.

From the perspective of a young teen, it was good. Having read the book, it was pretty much like the book, but added items of interest for the audience like romance. Wasn't too far off the mark though. At times it was confusing because there were short flashes of scenes (memories or transitions to another time). At times was pretty scary for a 9 year old and younger.