Wintersonnenwende - Die Jagd nach den sechs Zeichen des Lichts

If you read the book, skip the movie. If you did not read the book, still skip the movie. I saw this with a group in which some of us had read the book and some of us had not. Everybody disliked it.

The story was confusing, disjointed, and eventually pointless. Even if you had read the book, it appeared that the screenwriter was taking scenes from Harry Potter, scenes from the Fifth Element, and a few scenes from Cooper's original novels then patching them together. This led to an incoherent story line.

The biggest question is what were they thinking when they disregarded the story contained in the book? In an episode of "all things considered" on NPR, screenwriter John Hodge asserted that he was trying to distance this movie from Harry Potter. If so, he failed miserably because the massive changes made this look more like a bad Harry Potter knock-off than a separate film. From the NPR interviews, it appears that Ms. Cooper had little or no input in the film. I suspect that the filmmakers were trying to make a Harry Potter-like film out of Susan Cooper's story so they could avoid copyright infringement. Unfortunately, they were trying to fit a square peg into the round hole and it did not work.

If you watch this movie through the lens of a 10-14 year old you will probably find this movie enjoyable enough. It does all the things this genre requires and does most of them well enough.

It does suffer the unique affliction of being both too long and too short. Longer and they could have provided much needed depth, shorter it could have avoided some of the boredom.

If Christopher Eccleston was any more wooden in this movie he'd be Pinocchio!! His is a dreadful performance, the film could have absolutely benefited from someone else as the villain.

Overall much better than the majority of films I had to watch as a parent!

Rarely have I been so disappointed, I actually walked out of this film half way through, not caring how they end this debacle. With such a rich text to draw from, this movie could have been awesome, the plot is pathetic, the characterisation all wrong, the dialogue clichéd drivel, what were they thinking.

Why they had to change the setting away from Celtic countries & Saxon mythology I have no idea. The whole heart & soul is missing from the story.

Everyone involved in the production of this film should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves, they've chipped away at a cherished bit of thousands of peoples childhood memories by squeezing out this arse-gravy onto celluloid.

That should just about sum it up, but I'll continue. There were about 3 things about Susan Cooper's magnificent book that were preserved in this movie: a couple of names (but certainly not all of them--where was the difficulty in letting his father be named "Roger" rather than changing it to "John"??), a rook feather in the snow, and... that's about it. Sorry, couldn't think of a third. From the color of the Rider's horse to the number (AND AGE) of Will's siblings, from the abilities of the Old Ones (Swords and crossbows? Really?) to the utter importance of the Walker (I wanted to scream)... nothing nothing nothing was safe from being altered, disregarded, obliterated, and out-and-out ignored. I wasted $7.50, but had to be sure that it was as awful as I feared. It was worse. The last time a superb book-turned-rubbish-movie angered me this much was when I was forced to see Jim Carrey prance around as Count Olaf, who should've been one of the greatest villains to scare the wits out of little kids everywhere.

I'd like to say I'm done with adaptations, but The Golden Compass is coming out, and that one looks like more than the gaffer actually read the bloody book.

I am quick to love movies, especially ones set in Britain. This one could not pull me in if it had a rope around my neck. The actors of this film do not deserve any ire. They did the best that they were told to do. Which involved over-emoting and false drama. For that the director deserves horrible ratings. The real villain of this movie is the writer. Now, I have not read the book, I pray that it is better than this waste of an hour and 39 minutes. Though if the screenplay is based on the book, it is probably 26 pages long. The dialog was uninviting, there was not a shred of suspense. Everything was stumbled upon or told immediately by another character. I give credit to the producer, the money spent on the actors was probably worth it I did think that there was a bit of integrity because of the actors (I was wrong). Though in the future they ought to spend more on rewrites. The screenplay writer needs to never work with the pen again. It would be better that way. Don't spend money on this. Take the time to find a place that is still showing Stardust, if it is 2 counties away, still worth more than subjecting your self to this terrible "coming of age" fiasco. I want my money back.