Eragon Review

Talk about dissapointing. Ever since I heard they were going to make an Eragon movie, I was having 'Geek Attacks' all over the place. Even though the book was completely unorginal, it still had a ton of scenes and themes that would make an outstanding movie. Just thinking about how the movie might handle such concepts as Eragon's first true communication with his dragon got me all excited. This could have been the next Harry Potter! So what happened? The movie sucked, that's what happened.

I don't know who wrote or directed this piece of garbage, but they need to be fired. The entire film lacks any sort of visual inspiration, and I think this is mostly to blame for the studio picking up a newbie director to take charge of the movie. The guy hasn't directed a Hollywood film before, is it really worth the gamble giving something with so much possibility to a complete unknown? If the studio even cared how the film was going to turn out, they would have actually searched for someone with the directing skills to handle a grand fantasy picture. Of course.. they didn't even bother, and the movie suffers for it.

Don't get me wrong, even a talented director would have a hard time making anything out of this screenplay. I understand that you have to take liberties when adapating a book to screen, but this is just absurd. The only thing the book and film have in common is the names of the characters and maybe the first twenty minutes of the movie (but barely). That's it! None of the touching themes or interesting concepts that made the book such a hit made it in this big-screen adaptation. What's left is what feels like a bad Star Wars rip-off set in Middle-Earth. They might as well have changed the title of the movie, because Eragon fans will be ticked after seeing this. I sure was, and I didn't even finish the entire book!


I couldn't have put it better myself, Action Figure Man!

One of my favorite examples of how the screenplay utterly ruined its source matieral was in Saphira's (the dragon) first flight. In the book, it takes a while for the dragon to completely mature. In the film, she just swoops up into the sky for a minute, then comes crashing back down as a full blown dragon. To make it even cheesier, she begins talking to Eragon right from the word go. :) His expression still makes me laugh. It isn't one of those 'Wow, I'm really amazed' kind of looks. Instead it was one of those 'I really want my paycheck, but that means acting in this crappy movie' looks.

I could go and on and on about how uninspired and boring this movie was, but I figure you already get the picture. Most everyone already knows it was a flop, so you're probably not going to see it anyways. Save your money and rent Superman Returns instead! Now that was a good movie.

Rating: D+ (the dragon was kind of cool... and that's about it)


This is one of those cool trailers that is about twice as entertaining as the actual movie. Has about the same amount of substance too.