When I popped the DVD in the player, I promised myself to be objective and ignore all the criticism. There were a couple of redeeming qualities in this film, but the bad outweighs the good.
The summary is very cliché and has already worked in so many other fantasy stories. A lowly farm boy is swept into a rebellion as the last hope to save the kingdom/world/universe. Eragon, the farm boy, stumbles upon a stone with ends up being a dragon egg. He learns he's the new hope for the 'dragon riders.' You can probably fill in the blanks with your knowledge of fantasy movies.
The Good: I really enjoyed the relationship between Eragon and the dragon, Saphira. The special effects were not groundbreaking, but decent nonetheless. Saphira's voice-over work by Rachel Weisz was great and Ed Speelers was decent in the roll of Eragon. Also, Kudos to Jeremy Irons as Brom.
The Bad: Obvious plot similarities to Star Wars and LOTR. After about 15 minutes, my objectivity turned into finding the parallels to the other films. Urgals=Orcs, Dragon Riders=Jedi, Brom=Obi Wan, Ra'zaks(sp)=Ringwraiths/riders... it goes on and on. Even when trying to put these out of my mind, the movie was not engaging enough to keep my attention. The dialog was bad, and the fighting, with one or two exceptions, was laughable. It also turn me off that 15 minutes into the movie I predicted the rest of the plot. I also understand that the director had to take some liberties from the book to set it apart from other fantasy/sci-fi films. That isn't a good sign in adapting a novel.
Overall, Eragon is worth a rental at best.
The summary is very cliché and has already worked in so many other fantasy stories. A lowly farm boy is swept into a rebellion as the last hope to save the kingdom/world/universe. Eragon, the farm boy, stumbles upon a stone with ends up being a dragon egg. He learns he's the new hope for the 'dragon riders.' You can probably fill in the blanks with your knowledge of fantasy movies.
The Good: I really enjoyed the relationship between Eragon and the dragon, Saphira. The special effects were not groundbreaking, but decent nonetheless. Saphira's voice-over work by Rachel Weisz was great and Ed Speelers was decent in the roll of Eragon. Also, Kudos to Jeremy Irons as Brom.
The Bad: Obvious plot similarities to Star Wars and LOTR. After about 15 minutes, my objectivity turned into finding the parallels to the other films. Urgals=Orcs, Dragon Riders=Jedi, Brom=Obi Wan, Ra'zaks(sp)=Ringwraiths/riders... it goes on and on. Even when trying to put these out of my mind, the movie was not engaging enough to keep my attention. The dialog was bad, and the fighting, with one or two exceptions, was laughable. It also turn me off that 15 minutes into the movie I predicted the rest of the plot. I also understand that the director had to take some liberties from the book to set it apart from other fantasy/sci-fi films. That isn't a good sign in adapting a novel.
Overall, Eragon is worth a rental at best.
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