"Eragon" Movie Review

"Eragon" is based on a novel written by a teenage boy, and falls short of even that maturity level. Sadly, "Eragon" puts the 'drag' in dragon movies.

A computer generated dragon is the only character in Eragon able to evoke an emotional connection, and with good reason. The director of this would-be epic has spent his entire career in special effects, but he shows no aptitude for inspiring very much sympathy toward his human characters.

First time director Stefan Fangmeier's previous work has been as a visual effects supervisor, often for Industrial Light and Magic, on projects like "Lemony Snicket," "Signs," "A Perfect Storm" and "Casper."

With "Eragon," he attempts the feat accomplished by Peter Jackson but the result is more reminiscent of an Ewe Boll movie, pitched for a grammar school audience. Only children of that age are likely not to notice or care about the awkward and boring exposition, the vapid cardboard characters, or about the unavoidable and unflattering comparision to Tolkien, Lucas, McCaffrey and C.S. Lewis.

The writer of Eragon's source material is Christopher Paolini, who wrote the novel during his mid to late teens. His parents' publishing company printed the book's first edition, and Paolini admirably set about selling it and raising awareness about it in every way he could. He caught lightning in a bottle when it was discovered by Knopf Publishing and reprinted with national distribution.

Whereas Tolkien and Lewis were university educated scholars with decades of studying classical mythology behind them, Paolini wrote "Eragon" as a boy with years of watching "Star Wars" and reading "Lord of the Rings" behind him. The comparison is painfully apparent, especially in the shockingly shallow film version of his tale.

Fans of the book will notice painfully how most of the narrative and many of the characters have been stripped away. For those new to the story, the realization that John Malkovich's entire performance looks and sounds like it was filmed on a soundstage in between lunch and dinner will be painful enough.

In the role of the dragon-riding hero Eragon, first time film actor Edward Speleers is made to look like a singer in a boy band rather than the peasant class farm boy he is meant to be. Jeremy Irons as Brom the mentor and Robert Carlyle as Durza the undead sorcerer do the best they can under the circumstances, while the rest of the cast are little more than unexplained extras.

As the villains, the evil king's army are a sad lot, looking like a horde of fat, balding couch potatoes and the evil King Galbatorix, played by Malkovich, never has a chance to do much except throw sibilant hissy fits.

In Eragon, the CG characters both good and evil are the most fun to watch. Eragon's dragon Saphira (who roars ferociously, but communicates telepathically in the gentle voice of actress Rachel Weisz) is an often thrilling and entertaining character, while the unhuman Ra'zac are chilling to behold though underused.

Eragon (2006)
Directed by Stefan Fangmeier
Screenplay by Peter Buchman

Stars:
Edward Speleers ....... Eragon
Jeremy Irons ........ .......Brom
John Malkovich ............King Galbatorix
Djimon Hounsou ....... Ajihad
Sienna Guillory ........... Arya
Chris Egan .................. Roran
Robert Carlyle ............. Durza
Garrett Hedlund .......... Murtagh
Rachel Weisz .............. the voice of Saphira

Rated PG for fantasy violence, intense battle sequences,
and some frightening images.