I just watched this movie and I don't know where to start. This is just a very bad movie. This has nothing to do with the fact that the movie departed from the books; it's a very bad movie, period. I don't blame the actors; I think they did the best they could with what they had. I would sum up this movie as an awful lot (or a lot of awful) effects and camera stunts being used to hide the fact that there is no story.<br /><br />The camera switches from close-up to dangling high overhead repeatedly. It jumps around in battle scenes, apparently to make up for a lack of action. The special effects are cliché, more distracting than dramatic, and the battles turn into yet another CGI super-hero cartoon scene. But this is really just obscuring the fact that there is no story. The history is contrived; the family is pathetic; the Old Ones are rather useless; it's fortunate for Will that the enemy is inclined more to drama than to action. Once again we see the woman-as-temptress, tool-of-the-devil theme. The final battle is mostly against a lot of black dust. Will is driven by self-pity and only gets interested in the battle when he finds he has real power -- and then he becomes a rather self-righteous little jerk. None of these characters are likable or interesting (except possibly to 13-year-old boys).<br /><br />Which brings me to the review by the Truly Moving Pictures judge. I notice that the reviewer did not use a real name, and the website does not list judges (that I could find). The fact that this organization gave this film any kind of award can only indicate some kind of financial interest, since there is clearly no merit whatsoever evident in this film. I would agree that you can see the budget in the film, but I would add that you can also see that it was wasted. I was highly gratified that on opening weekend, there were perhaps twenty or thirty people in the entire theater. Hopefully there won't be any attempt at a sequel and perhaps someday someone will do justice to Susan Cooper's books.