There are, in the annals of history, magical moments in time when the great soulless beast that is Hollywood pauses from its usual grind of crap-fests and produces a great fantasy movie like Willow or the Lord of the Rings.  And then there are other moments, incidents marred by weeping and gnashing of teeth… when children cry and fire and brimstone fall from the sky… when with no remorse, they produce utter garbage like the horrific fantasy movie gone wrong: Eragon.

No, it’s not the story of Aragorn’s loser older brother who drinks  too much and gets  thrown in jail for trashing his workplace.  But

instead is the tale of a teenage boy who becomes a heroic dragon rider and saves his downtrodden and suffering people.  Well… sort of.  Believe it or not, I actually had some hope for this movie.  Right up until about the third minute that is… when our hero, Eragon (Edward Speleers), fires an arrow and it looks (at best) to have flown from a child’s plastic bow set from the nineteen-fifties.  That singular event came to represent the movie as a whole: shabby and not well thought out.  The plot is full of holes; the acting is stiff; and the fights and battles look as if they were choreographed by a blind twelve year old with a note in his mouth. 

If you  have seen Dungeons & Dragons or any  other  fantasy-type clone, you know

roughly the type of movie to expect here.  In fact Dungeons & Dragons quasi-star Jeremy Irons even shows up to (unsuccessfully) lend a bit of credibility to the acting.  Sadly though, it’s not enough to redeem this one.  The story of Eragon is set in the land of Alagaesia, which has been subverted by an evil dragon rider and now self proclaimed King, Galbatorix.  The good dragon riders of Alagaesia apparently kept the peace until Galbatorix killed them all.  Now the people wait for a new dragon rider to appear and free the land.  Unique and original, eh?

There is however one glaringly major paradox right off the bat, as the peaceful town our hero lives in (and indeed the countryside around it) doesn’t seem to be suffering much at all.  In fact, aside from their sons being drafted into the King’s army, they are all well fed and seem to be  having a grand old time living life.  It turns  out to be rather difficult to get the sense of it being a land that

needs saving actually.  Sure, Galbatorix and his minions are ‘evil’ but if the population isn’t suffering it’s hard to justify a revolt... unless of course, you just happen to be a halfwit kid whose uncle gets murdered.  Luckily Eragon is just that.

Halfwit or just plain dumb, he ends up receiving the last dragon egg the resistance movement stole from Galbatorix.  This event opens the film and right after you are informed: “The egg was stolen, and the king is greatly disturbed by this,” we get a shot of a very bored looking John Malkovich as the king (Malkovich! Malkovich!) mumbling idly,  “My egg is missing.  This greatly disturbs me.”  ...Very

nicely done for a 1985 episode of the Smurfs maybe, but not what one expects from a feature film.  Shortly after, the egg hatches in our halfwit hero’s care and before you know it the dragon is nearly full grown through a mid-flight transformation and can speak to Eragon via his thoughts.  Yeah.

The dragon, Saphira seems to be about the boy’s match mentally so they generally seem to make a good pair, even running off to the enemy’s stronghold without back up or the least bit of combat training.  These are the types of moronic decisions our heroes will make for literally two straight hours.  The village thief turns out to be an ex dragon rider named Brom who convinces Eragon and Saphira to go to the mountains and join the resistance, saving them from an undoubtedly quick and violent death.  They are pursued on their journey in a series of lackluster fights involving the King’s henchmen (called Urgles).  Urgles, it turns out, are a blatant rip off of Lord of the Rings Orcs (although it seems they could only afford to put good makeup on one of them).  Essentially they end up looking like a pack of fat bikers with utterly retarded face tattoos being lead by a really confused looking Orc who apparently went freelance after Mordor fell.  The film eventually climaxes in a battle between the resistance and Galbatorix’s forces, but the evil king isn’t even there!  Instead the Urgles are lead by Durza, the demon sorcerer played by Robert Carlyle. 

Naturally the resistance wins and the movie closes with obvious sequel intentions.  They don’t even bother to include a dragon rider brawl in the sky.  Durza and our dimwitted hero do clash in the air, but the evil sorcerer is on a magic smoke beast instead of another dragon.  So the film about dragon riders… doesn’t even capitalize on what  could easily have been the  coolest scene,

a dragon brawl in the sky?!?  Imagine how awesome it would have been to see two huge beasts locked together and ripping at each other as their riders leap around them in a furious duel?  That scene alone could have made up for seventy-five percent of the lameness this movie dumps on you.   Did no one think this might have been a good idea?  I guess not.

If you do bother to see this film you might wonder (as I did) how generally good actors end up being so gut-wrenchingly horrific.  John Malkovich for example is typically an amazing actor who consistently gives good performances.  Yet in Eragon he is wooden and boring to watch.  Jeremy Irons seems to at least have some enthusiasm for his role, but unfortunately it isn’t enough to give Brom any real weight  like similar mentor characters in the genre.  Robert Carlyle is the only

one who has any decent dialogue and actually manages to find a bit of a character to play in Durza.  He delivers what is by far the films best line when he sees Eragon for the first time, saying, “I expected something more, well, more.” 

Remember how I mentioned this movie is just shabby?  Well, the visuals are no exception.  There are a few shots of our heroes riding across mountain ranges but the backgrounds are poorly inserted in postproduction as they move faster then the rider’s do, making the scenes a bit jerky and epileptic to watch.  The moments of slow motion that occasionally occur during combat are equally as useless as they come at random times and at best look like bad wire-fu work.  Even the weapons and armor used in the film are simply cheap and look much like someone who is not familiar with fantasy movies idea of what they should be.  The one exception to this is the dragon, Saphira.  At the very least they managed to digitally create an  exceptional looking dragon and

insert it rather well into the film.  It is however, a confusing contradiction to everything else, and one must wonder how so much attention could be paid to one element while the rest suffer.

At this point I suppose you get the idea and it’s more or less pointless to go on.  Eragon is a bad movie.  As much as I appreciate any studio’s effort to bring us a fantasy epic, I don’t appreciate the whole thing seeming like a school play with a budget.  Eragon lacks in so many ways that undoubtedly point to the careless handling of individuals who simply aren’t fans of the genre.  As for this being “The first chapter of the Inheritance Trilogy”?  Good luck.  I haven’t read the book it has

been adapted from, but hope for the sake of anyone who did that it is put together better then the movie, which I can only critique best using its own words. “I expected something more, well, more.”

-Max out.