Review: Eragon the Movie

For fans of the best-selling young adult book Eragon, the news of a movie adaptation was exciting indeed. Christopher Paolini's sword-and-sorcery fantasy epic book of the same title was the first installment in his Inheritance Trilogy, and his fans eagerly awaited the opening of the movie. Unfortunately, if you've read the book, you'll be disappointed in the movie. And if you haven't read the book, you're likely to be lost.

Eragon tells the story of a seventeen year old farm lad of the same name (Edward Speleers), living in a land where the King's men steal and oppress at will and telling the legend of the Dragon Riders, once the protectors of justice and good, is outlawed. At the start of both book and movie, elf warrior-princess Aria (Sienna Guillory) has just stolen one of the last remaining dragon eggs from King Galbatorix (John Malkovich). Cornered by the King's men and pet sorcerer Durza (Robert Carlyle), Aria calls on her powers to send the egg far away. Eragon finds it, takes it home, and the big blue jellybean hatches into an utterly adorable baby dragon that marks his hand.

That's just about all the book and the movie have in common.

Rather than a white scar on the palm--a detail that's important, as Eragon becomes known by an elven title meaning 'white palm' in the book--he gets this cinnamon-bun looking brown swirl. The baby dragon, Saphira (voiced by Rachel Weisz), grows from baby to young adult literally in moments. The special effect of her moulting in flames as she soars through the clouds on her first flight is nifty, but it completely skips some rather important aspects of the book--such as, oh, Eragon and Saphira bonding? She lands, Eragon almost wets himself, and suddenly they're conversing mind-to-mind. Saphira is a beautiful creature, but isn't true to the book--she's got feathers? What happened to the sapphire-scales from whence came her name? I can't help but think those look a big flammable, but the design of the dragon aside, she's a lovely special effect.

Jeremy Irons gives the only convincing performance of the movie as Brom, a mysterious man who lives in Eragon's village and seems to know an awful lot about dragons. Although he is given some utterly ridiculous lines in the movie, he pulls them off as only a true pro can. After Brom saves Eragon's skin and whisks him away from the evil baddies who are out to get him (these creatures are best described as Ring Wraiths Junior), they spend about three days together before Eragon decides to ditch the mentor and save Aria, whom he has seen in a dream. Again, this skips so very much important book material that the mind boggles--such as little details like how to ride a dragon, how to use magic, who the Varden are, Brom's history, etc, etc, etc...

Brom dies tragically saving Eragon's (very ungrateful) skin, but Saphira saves their bacon. Now they run off to the Varden, the hidden rebel forces preparing to strike back against the Empire... whoops, I mean King Galbatorix. The Varden are such an important part of both the books Eragon and Eldest, the second installment in the trilogy, that it is frustrating to see them given such a tiny amount of importance in the movie. WIth ridiculous armor but a pretty cool stone garage-door hiding their lair, the Varden seem like they're only in the movie to provide extras for the final battle scene.

And the final battle scene is just disappointing. Again, some good special effects as Durza conjures some kind of shadow bat from hell and battles Eragon and Saphira, but the difficulty and physical cost of slaying a Shade are pretty much skipped. There's a lot of yelling, people slashing at other people and arrows flying, and then it's over. Yawn. Eragon wakes up after the battle and asks if Saphira's all right, which leads to the cheesiest line in an already cheddar-rific movie: "Some friends can never be replaced." --pause a beat, so we can all assume Saphira's kicked it-- "But luckily, some don't have to be." As teenagers around the world so often moan, oh, puh-leeze.

If you loved the book, avoid the movie. Skipping so much of the meat of the book leaves fans disappointed, and the uninitiated lost. John Malkovitch as King Galbatorix looks about a second away from slipping into a coma from boredom, and he sounds like he's reading his lines from a teleprompter. The dialogue is eye-rollingly awful throughout the movie. Apart from Jeremy Irons, the actors turn in a performance so wooden, they could've been trying out for the lead role in Pinochio. Even the CG dragon emotes better than the rest of the actors. Eragon is meant to be the first movie in a planned trilogy, but I will be surprised if the other two see the light of day after this travesty.