Eragon (2006)

The book was well-developed with interesting characters and species. The movie was an insult. The species of some characters were changed- which is a big deal and completely ruins everything. Some characters were left out entirely. The dialogue and development of the story were simplified, especially Saphira's. The actual ending was changed in an unnecessary manner. The only credit I'll give them is the quality of the special effects. They screwed any chances of a sequel.

Tell me if you've heard this one before... A farm boy wants to do something more with his life. He leaves home to run an errand, finds something that foreshadows a future as a special kind of knight, and when he returns home is a family is dead. He and a mentor go to rescue a princess. The mentor teaches him about how to tap into a special ability he has. They quickly run into a shady guy who will end up proving himself trustworthy. They fly around. They get to the princes and release her. The mentor takes on the big bad guy and dies. The three young heroes unite and blow up the evil lair. The name of the movie I'm describing is.... Eragon? True, Star Wars itself is in many ways just a retelling of The Hidden Fortress, but that was a practically unknown movie, especially when you compare it to Star Wars.

On my 11th birthday, I remember the first gift I opened before I went to school was the book Eragon. As a kid who loved Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings (and still do to this day), I was excited to read into this newer fantasy book. I enjoyed it very much as a kid, and to this day I still think it is a good book despite a few flaws I've noticed more now that I'm older.And of course, around the time I read the Eragon book, the film adaptation was getting ready to come out. I was so excited. I was expecting a film on par with The Lord of the Rings and The Chronicles of Narnia. Sadly, two things started to discourage me as the film's release grew closer: 1) The film's MPAA rating was PG and 2) the film's running time was only 104 minutes. This got me worried, and the reviews for the film by critics and fans didn't exactly help. Needless to say, I was disappointed by this adaptation, but not just because it took out some of my favorite parts from the book, but because it wasn't a good movie either.For those of you who are not familiar with the book, Eragon is based off the book by Christopher Paolini, who started writing it when he was only 15 years old and got it published when he was 18. The story is set in the magical world of Alagaesia, which was once ruled by a group of warriors known as the Dragon Riders. However, one day a rider named Galbatorix betrays the riders and kills them all, making himself king over Alagaesia. Fast forward a few hundred/thousand years later and we meet a young boy named Eragon, who stumbles upon a magical blue stone while hunting in the wilderness. He originally thinks that he can use it to buy meat for his family, but he quickly learns that the stone is actually a dragon egg. And when the dragon egg hatches, Eragon becomes the next dragon rider.As you can tell by reading the synopsis, this story is very similar to other fantasy films such as Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, etc. Of course, this was also a criticism of the book as well, but at least it had likable characters, epic action scenes, and a great level of detail that brought the world to life. These things were at least present in order to make the story compelling, even if it is beat by beat the story of Star Wars. This film version has barely any of that. The characters aren't fleshed out enough to where you care about them. The action is dumbed down in order to create a PG fantasy film for children. Alagaesia itself isn't set apart from any other fantasy worlds we've seen before. The movie just feels like no effort was really put into it except when it came to the visual effects, which are almost too good for this movie.This is mostly due to a really poor script. I'm not just talking about the dialogue, which is some of the worst I've ever heard ("I'm the rider and I say we go"), but the way the story is set up feels like they just took a few scenes from the book and slapped it together to make a movie that was under two hours so they could make a quick buck. Characters appear that have very little screen time and ultimately feel pointless. Even characters that provide importance to the later books are minimized or just simply don't appear at all. It's not structured well, and you can tell that the passion for the source material that fueled the makers of LOTR and Harry Potter is not here at all.Even the action sequences are not all that spectacular. Part of me wants to blame the film's PG rating, but we've seen other movies with this rating that were able to create epic and enjoyable action scenes. The only part that is really enjoyable and entertaining is the final confrontation between Eragon and Durza, the film's main antagonist, which also leads to an scene afterward that had quite a bit of emotion to it. However, anyone expecting epic battle sequences on par with LOTR are probably going to be as disappointed as I was.As far as the acting goes, there are actually a few good performances here, the best of which being Jeremy Irons as Brom. You can tell that he was having fun with the role and was doing his best with the material he was given. Ed Speleers also does a fair job as Eragon, and had this film actually been successful, I would have been interested in seeing him star in more films. Djimon Honsu is also good in his brief role as Ajihad, and Rachel Weisz does a decent job as the voice of Saphira. Most of the other actors fall flat, with the two worst performances coming from John Malkovich, who looks like he's ready to stop shooting and get his paycheck, and Robert Carlile, who takes what could be a compelling villain and makes him absolutely silly.Ultimately, Eragon is wasted potential. It's a movie that could have been great had they put more effort into everything other than the visual effects and handled the adaptation process a little more seriously. I'm not saying that a movie has to be 100% faithful to the source material, but in this case, it would have worked better for the movie and for the potential sequels that could have come from it. In the end, it's not one of the worst movies ever made, but it is definitely one that was disappointing to me and other fans of the book, as well as those looking for the next LOTR or Harry Potter.

I really love this tale. I like the idea of dragons and riders, but the actor Ed Speleers was the worst choice. IMHO even Rowan Atkinson would better. He has charm in his smile but that's all good in him. He can't act and can't speak.Still ... Jeremy Irons, Sienna Guillory, Robert Carlyle and John Malkovich made the movie better. Jeremy Irons' almost rude, but wise style is frenetic. Robert Carlyle has many faces that very useful to be the main evil.Finally ... that texts are a bit annoying. Be careful, you be careful, no, you be careful ...That "7" goes to everybody, except Ed. He deserves 3.