Movie Review – Eragon

Director: Stefen Fangmeier
Starring: Edward Speleers, Jeremy Irons,Rachel Weisz
Studio: 20th Century Fox
Release Date: December 15, 2006

Surprisingly, there are not too many things in this world that make me want to tear my eyes out with rusty silverware and sauté them in lava. A room full of crying babies, yes. Harry Potter fanfic, double yes. Toll booth lights never changing after tossing in your change, triple yes. But Eragon, the movie, the terrible and horrible and incredibly bad flick about a boy, his dragon, and the love they share for wretched dialogue, takes the molten cake.

Based off of the novel of the same name by home-schooled Christopher Paolini, Eragon is about a boy of the title’s namesake (Edward Speelers) who stumbles upon a magical egg sent to him out of desperation by the elf warrior Arya (Sienna Guillory). This egg is being hunted by the shade Durza (Robert Carlyle) who is ordered to retrieve it by the nefarious King Galbatorix (John Malcovich) as it contains what could very well be the last dragon of the realm. And, duh, only old men should be allowed to have dragons. Eragon brings home the egg only to discover it hatching soon after. Sadly, no scrambled breakfast inside. Just a wee blue lizard-thingy, which the idiot boy thinks is a bird at first. When Saphira (voiced by Rachel Weisz) marks Eragon as her rider, the dragon’s existence is made known to those that can sense these things. The pursuit is on, and Eragon is thrown into an adventure to save a rebel army from the soldiers of the king who are bent on making all suffer needlessly.

Where to begin? It’s clear the film is trying to be something more than just a fantasy film, but it fails on so many different levels that it’s even clearer that the film blows dragon holes. The acting is stiffly overdone. The music is cheesy and so cliché that when the evil castle looms in the background the viewers get treated to deep drums and heavy string progressions. But when dragons fly or our hero wields his sword or beautiful people smile? It’s like a Dance Dance Revolution remix or something. All that was missing was the tiny anime emoticons that pop up next to everybody. There’s plenty of problem with the pacing of the film and overall, there just isn’t much to hold onto during the journey. Luckily, it’s not epic in the sense of the movie’s length.

Having read both books in the series so far, I noticed far too many changes in the movie screenplay which really give off the sense that this film is a one-hit flick, created only to steal cash from fanboys and fangirls, and that there is truly no love or adoration for the subject material. How can there be when in Eragon the writers kill off two characters that play a predominantly important role in the second book? SPOILER ALERT. When Eragon wakes up at the end of the movie to find Murtagh in his room, he seems confused. And rightly he should. That damn pretty boy was supposed to have snuck off with the Urgals and the Twins (who were missing from the film) so that he can do some sneaky surprise stuff in Eldest. But I guess the writers/directors/monkeys thought it’d be good to play a little mean joke on Eragon and tell him his dragon was dead. Hah! Just kidding! Got your nose!

It’s very easy to make a joke about the dialogue of the movie being written by a four-year-old when the fact remains that the novel itself was written by a seventeen-year-old (or was it sixteen? Twelve? Nine?). Some lines just sound ridiculous, like King Galbatorix saying “I suffer without my stone.” Are we talking about kidney stones here? I think men suffer more with them. Other lines are quite comical: “You look fit for battle.” and “I have skills.” produced some chuckles. Also, as I’ve never really ridden a dragon before, I’m not too sure how easy it is to have a conversation without someone galloping on a horse on the ground. I guess using recess-level voices does the job, but I could be wrong.

Poor, poor Edward Speelers. As this is his first feature film/acting gig, it might also very well be his last. Apparantly, after a worldwide scour for the perfect actor and after almost leaving the movie behind after no such boy seemed alive, the casting crew went with this head on a stick. It’s not that he can’t act (he can’t), it’s just that he seemed so uncomfortable in his role. Is the script to blame for this? Partially. But I’m going to blame him too. Brom (Jeremy Irons) and Angela (Joss Stone) were the only interesting characters, but their screen time was short-lived. The actor portraying Durza seemed to be enjoying his role, but the motivations behind his actions just weren’t there. He made a better villain than ol’ King Baldy who, apparently, keeps a dragon behind his tablecloth map (magically, the dragon never makes a noise!).

The movie cost me $9.00. Don’t waste the money. The book? It’s around $12.00 or so in trade paperback. Don’t buy that either. Instead, treat yourself to a nice lunch and consider your money and time well-spent, which is far better than what I did with mine. Now I know who Eragon and Brom were talking about in the film when they kept saying, “One part brave, three parts fool.”

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