A very bad film indeed and one that I'd rather rate with zero, but I'll through a half a star Robert Carlyle's way. John Malkovitch looked embarrassed to be in the movie, as did Jeremy Irons. The only positive that can be taken from this is that due to it's box-office and critical failure, we will probably be spared the adaptations to the rest of the series. The kid cast as the lead is a terrible actor of Anikin Skywalker proportions. This is one, and quite possibly the definitive to those exceptions. Normally a fantasy yarn has something to hold your interest - no matter how poor - but it just goes to show there are exceptions to that. The same goes for Carlyle but he still manages to deliver a decidedly nasty villian that's way above this nonsense. You get the impression from Irons and Malkovich that they know they've made a mistake with this one. While it was a really bad adaption, they also shot themselves in the foot by leaving out important characters.
Speelers doesn't really cut it as the hero of the tale, lacking charisma and any form of acting ability and the rest of the cast seem perplexed. The series basically stars him alongside Eragon, and since they left out his story from Part 1, they'd have to introduce it in the second film, out of synch with Eragon's story. In a book like Eragon, a lot of details simply have to be cut out to make it viable for conversion into film.
completely skipping Saphira's childhood) were lost to the fact that the movie was only 1.5 hrs long. Although some were impressed with the special effects, I didn't find them to be anything special. A combination of a low budget, and the time constraints of a movie. It made no effort to even look like the dragon was communicating and just came across as cheap and insulting. Admittedly, I've never read the books, leaving me unsure as to how the adaptation should be but I do know this. This was also based on a series of books by Christopher Paolini but it's not even in the same league as some of the quality we've recently been spoiled with. If your going to release a fantasy film these days then make sure it has some mileage, as "The Lord of the Rings" has set a very high benchmark. Also the plot was awful, and the took almost nothing from.
Young farmer Eragon (Ed Speleers) finds a dragon's egg, and teams up with the newborn dragon, Saphira (voiced by Rachel Weisz), a former Dragon Rider (Jeremy Irons) and a female Elf (Sienna Guillory) to tackle an evil king (John Malkovich) and his shady accomplice (Robert Carlyle).īad dialogue, bad acting, bad movie. Plus it messed up all the characters, had too much CGI and as boring.
Seriously though, I wish I'd listened to the naysayers now. Eragon reads like it was dashed off to the presses after a lazy scan-read the publisher was too distracted by the ker-ching noises in his head to actually check the damn thing. However, I eventually thought I should still give it go and see for myself. Criticism serves a big purpose: to highlight poor work and show others in the business exactly why and how it is poor, allowing them to make their own work better. I enjoy a good fantastical story but I had avoided this one due to the bad things I'd heard of it.