- Released: December 15 2006
- Directed by: Stefan Fangmeier
- Running time: 1 h 44 min
- Rating 2/5
Synopsis
A farmer boy becomes the one chosen to be a dragon rider and one day hopefully overthrow the tyrant Galbatorix.
My Thoughts
Now that I’m re-reading the book I wanted to re-visit the movie as well. Does it hold up? Well, yeah, probably not, but let’s have a look anyways.
I also want to give a shout-out to my internet friend Kiriko who was kind enough to gift me her copy of the movie. It’s got the German dub on it. Nena voices Saphira on it. Cool stuff.
This actually makes for a nice change of pace for me, since I’m used to only doing Movie Thoughts on animated movies (and usually bad ones at that). So let’s have a look at this flop now, shall we?
The story is probably among the most basic you can think of when thinking of any high-fantasy plot-line. Young innocent farmboy becomes the legendary chosen one and hero. But, honestly, that’s not what makes it bad. Keep in mind that this also was the premise of the books. And overused tropes do not always equal a bad product. But for this one, it unfortunately is. Where the book is at least enjoyable and has more engaging aspects surrounding the story, the movie just keeps it very cookie cutter and doesn’t make it very appealing to look. The bond between Eragon and his dragon, which is very strong in the book, just feels like an afterthought here, too. Instead of having him slowly raise her, she just flies into the sky and comes back a fully grown dragon that can suddenly speak. The movie also has the need to throw too many things at you. The whole Murtagh plotline feels rushed, and he’s only added in the last third of the film or so. So, yeah, for the plot execution, it’s not very good.
The acting was rather stilted at some places. Jeremy Irons (Brom) is a good actor, but he wasn’t really given a lot to work with here if you ask me. The only actor I honestly thought was genuinely having fun with their role was Robert Carlyle as the Shade Durza. The main actor Ed Speleers as Eragon does an okay job, but nothing outstanding.
The characters were nothing groundbreaking in the film alone. We have Eragon as your innocent kid who becomes a hero, Brom as the old mentor, Arya as the princess who of course has to be rescued and is helpless a lot of the time, Murtagh as the outcast, Saphira as the wise dragon. It’s honestly just very standard and I couldn’t really grow attached to any of them. The villains are over the top and nothing really sets them apart, either.
The effects and CGI were pretty good, I’ll give it that. Saphira, while I’m not the biggest fan of her design, looked good, as did some of the others. I’m not a huge fan of all the cheaper shortcuts they took, though, such as making the Urgals simply a group of humans rather than orc-like creatures. Speaking of which, yeah, having your main villain underlings be a tribe of people that are portrayed as barbaric and wear face paint and stuff like that probably isn’t very great, either.
The rest of the visuals were okay, too. Nothing masterful when it comes to the cinematography, but not horrible, either.
The soundtrack was good, but nothing really that memorable. It doesn’t have any scores that really make me feel like I’m in the movie, like with something like Lord of the Rings, which has tons of themes that are inseparable from scenes or locations in the films.
The movie also felt a bit repetitive. We get Eragon and Brom traveling a lot of the time, Durza and his minions trying to stop them, failing, and being called to Galbatorix who monologues and then sends them to undermine Eragon again. Just not very fun to watch.
Finally, I’d like to address the major changes the movie made. I know, I know. It’s an adaptation. Changes have to be made. But, by god, there’s a lot of changes in this film that even work against itself. Like mentioned before, having Saphira grow up spontaneously rather than over a longer period of time completely gets rid of any strong bond she and her Rider shared. There’s more things like this, as well as aspects that just make it look cheap. Arya is supposedly an elven princess, but there’s nothing that makes her look like one. They didn’t even bother giving her pointed ears. The aforementioned Urgals are just a group of people, rather than the fantasy creatures they were in the books. And there’s also the changes that just wouldn’t have make it work if they wanted to make more of this movie. The open ending hints at that they wanted to make more if Eragon hadn’t flopped this horribly. Maybe the movie didn’t even need to flop this bad, if they hadn’t made such a crazy amount of changes that work against making more and being a more consistent piece. Granted, I’m no longer angry at this movie like I used to be, but it’s still a huge disappointment. The lackluster writing, cheap shortcuts and many adaptation changes just really work against it.
Not recommended in the slightest, unless you want to know how not to adapt a fantasy movie. Book fans especially probably don’t want to see this one. Give it a pass.
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