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.

A fairly well paced and intriguing first half hour soon gives way to intense boredom in this stock HARRY POTTER rip-off, based on a series of novels by Susan Cooper. An obnoxious American lad is drawn into a world of sinister evil, age-old heroes fighting against age-old villains and the hunt for a series of magical talismans that will prevent the end of the world. At first, the film's fairly effective, with at least one stand-out moment to recommend it (it comes when the lead meets a couple of dodgy security guards in a shopping centre). After that, switching off is the best option.

The plot becomes twisted in its own earnestness and there are entirely too many shots of slow-motion horse-riding with a villain clearly borrowed from the LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy. Christopher Eccleston absolutely discredits himself with an appallingly hammy turn as the bad guy; few actors give performances this dire in big budget movies. In fact, the only star of note is Ian McShane and even he struggles with his repetitive dialogue and a role which is effectively expositionary. The farcical villains and overly familiar plotting in the end make this lame movie a complete waste of time and it's no surprise that it's been entirely forgotten about just four years after release.

This is based on a series of books. So I get that the translation from the page to the screen can be a messy process. But this thing is a mess. The characters seem to have an unlimited sets of powers. It's as if somebody decided to throw everything on the board. The kid time travels, have telekinetic powers. There's some kind of signs. The bad guy can influence minds. Control Ravens. Control Water. Do all kinds of magic. We need a whole book to keep track of everything. Nothing is explained that well. They also do slo-mo CG crazy angles.... If the book throws everything at us, then the movie throws every gimmick at us as well. It truly is a mess.