The Last Movie You Watched

[Rev. Rye]

This week in the Deep Hurting Project: The Seeker: Dark is Rising. I never read the book this was based on, but then again, neither did the screenwriter who adapted it. And the director hated fantasy. It wound up being the second-lowest-grossing film to ever open on more than 3000 screens (behind only Hoot for some reason). And now that I've fired up the VPN and moved from Chicago all the way to Toronto with just a few clicks on a VPN, and fired up Disney Plus, I'm prepared to hate this film.

• It's a fantasy movie, based on a novel written in 1973. So why is there such a focus on cell phones?
  
• It's been seven and a half minutes and I'm noticing that the possibility of a bird's wings flapping might be the first actual hint at anything fantastic.
  
• I know you don't like fantasy, director, but is there any reason these first 15 minutes seem like a random family's Christmas gathering. Seriously, I had to check to make sure that this was even the right movie.
  
• Goddammit, those overhead shots of the department store remind me of Macy's Marshall Field's. That atrium will never not trigger my acrophobia.
  
• They're really hammering in this spiral motif like it's Uzumaki. I don't know, maybe that's what the screenwriter really wanted to adapt.
  
• Fucking Christ, that random interrogation reminds me of that scene from Mystic River.
  
  
  
• Okay, now they took 20 minutes for them to do something that might have been like the Hogwarts invitation letter, and it turned out to be a normal Christmas party in a stately home.
  
• It took them 24 minutes into this 97 minute movie to actually start the fantasy. And now it's really jarring to see the contrast. At least Sorcerer's Stone eased the viewer into it.
  
• So the plot is something about a kid who knows signs and if something doesn't happen in five days, the dark will take over or something. I can only assume that the original book was more interesting. Apparently, there was some Celtic Mythology that they totally scrapped. I don't know much about Celtic mythology outside of The Tain, and even then, I'm going to go out on a limb and say there's no way in Hell they'd make that into a kids' movie. Especially with Cu Chulainn's warp spasms turning him into an abomination and the villainess MenstruatingPissing blood becoming a major plot point.
  
• And we're back to normal modern times that barely even connects to the fantasy plot.
  
• And he injured his foot. Why the fuck not.
  
• Seriously, of all the potential powers he might have, the one he's interested in is maybe being able to fly? To be fair, it looks like his power is just being able to see a potential spiral and randomly time-traveling because of it. 
  
• They're getting pelted by a bunch of snakes? I'm sure that Huggy Bear would call that an orgy.
  
• I'm halfway through this movie, and I still have no idea what the significance of Will finding a sign is supposed to be.
  
• I swear, Ian McShane is just looking for anything good to come along. And, sadly, he'd have to wait seven years for John Wick.
  
• So, Will's power is being able to interpret signs? Then why did he just Freak-In when he found something he decided was a sign?
  
• And Will not only has more powers, but he's apparently more interested in using them to seduce his brother's girlfriend than anything else? I know they didn't explain shit about what he's supposed to be doing,but this seems like a frustrating sidetrack in what's supposed to be a story about preventing the apocalypse (at least, I think it does.)
  
• You can't talk to a girl? You seemed to be doing a good job talking to your brother's girlfriend.
  
• And now he's just yelling and causing explosions. Why not?
  
• So our hero just Signed his way into a Viking Raid. I wonder if maybe he'll star in a series about Vikings that's going to make this random scene more hilarious.
  
• And he has a risk of exhausting his powers, so why did Miss Greythorne just leave him alone to do it.
  
• So, this kid's response to darkness overtaking the world is "Now we're going to have to eat stuff that was in the freezer." Why are we supposed to give a shit about this kid?
  
• The Champion and The Challenger. It's almost like the screenwriters didn't even care.
  
• Okay, in absolute fairness, Christopher Eccleston makes a halfway decent Rider.
  

Next week, Elf Quest/Homeward on Tubi.