Il risveglio delle tenebre

I was beside myself with glee when I first heard of this movie. The book it is based on has been a book I have read and reread as well as given to children and adults alike over the years. So I was HORRIBLY disappointed at the changes made in this adaptation. Key elements left out, characterizations gutted, the mythos it was based on trivialized.

After such great adaptations as LotR, Narnia and the Potter books to see this classic ruined was a sad sight.

The books concepts depend on British folktales and legends (Arthurian based) and the movie seems to have tossed that aside in an attempt to woo American audiences. The family is changed, leaving out the close knit structure that is the basis of the story.

Don't see this movie. Don't let your kids see this movie. Do yourselves a favor and read the book.

Someday someone will make this movie with an eye to the source material.

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!

To whoever made this movie: I congratulate you. The only redeeming factor in this poor excuse for a film is that it will be nearly impossible to produce any of the sequels. (Though I'm sure that won't stop you.) You have managed to destroy anything and everything that made the book wonderful and unique. To be able to something this awful with such great source material surely takes a great amount of planning and deliberation.

What, it was on accident? That is impressive.

Honestly, if you're not going to do it right, don't do it - screenwriters, directors, actors - was there anyone who felt the need to perhaps point out that this thing was a piece of crap? My father, who has never read the books, said the movie was awful, and I would dearly love the home address of the people who destroyed my favorite fantasy series.

I haven't read the book it's based on but from other reviews, it seems as though the book has been butchered by Cunningham. Well, I can totally understand that because this movie is perhaps one of the most boring movies of 2007. It's pretty to look at though. The special effects, visuals etc are well done. The swirling camera-work is overdone. The screenplay is a mess and the characters are nothing noteworthy. The performances are miserable. Even Christopher Eccleston couldn't save this film. The reason why I ended up watching the whole thing is because I was at a friend's who rented it (she likes fantasy films) and I didn't want to be rude by walking out. I almost dozed off but managed to keep myself awake out of courtesy. Cunningham probably tried to cash in on the success of fantasy films like the Harry Potter series and the many fantasy films released in the last years but his product is a huge disappointment. Given the material he could have made something great but alas!