Eragon - reviews (1 Viewer)

Couldn't find a thread for this so thought I would start one.

Got to see this tonight. I have no knowledge of the books other than it was written by a 15 year old boy. I hadn't even seen a trailer for this but the posters suggested some sort of Dragonheart crossed with LOTR.

Basically that's what you seem to get really along with the typical hero's journey of so many fantasy films. Someone mentioned to me that it is basically the same plot as Star Wars and there are definitely moments which are lifted straight from it. Obviously Star Wars was hardly original, but when you have a scene with a burning farmstead, a dead relative and a mentor consoling the hero telling him there was nothing you could have done if you had been there etc. well.... As such, It was pretty obvious what was going to happen (who was going to die, etc).

Nothing wrong with that if it is done well and film did have some good moments. However, the film rushes from one scene to another with little time to dwell on the characters or the world they are in. It is also extremely poorly edited in some places and some subplots which I guess would have been developed much better in the book, are barely given enough screentime to make them worthwhile (specifically a subplot concerning a mystery teenager who seems to be helping Eragon). Coming out of the film, I was pretty disappointed, partly because there were the makings of an enjoyable film in here. As it is, I'm sure younger children may well enjoy it, but this is no Lord of the Rings.

Some other points

1. The guy who played the lead character was pretty good really.
2. The special effects were by and large very well done, especially on the dragon.
3. Enjoyed seeing Robert Carlyle in this film as the main villain.
4. John Malkovich was in the film for all of about 1 minute.
5. The dragon talks!!! - sort of. Ok its a telepathy between the boy and the dragon but having a voice over for the dragon just doesn't work - even if it is Rachel Weisz Would have been much better for her not to talk at all and have Eragon translate when necessary (like Han and Chewbacca

Altogether I would give it :star::star: out of :star::star::star::star::star:, partly because there was potential here for a much better film.

Hmmmm....well I plan to see it this weekend. Too bad it didn't live up to the potential for you Simon.

Ouch! 2 out of 5? I was planning on it too this weekend. Maybe I'll have to go back to the drawing board...

No offense, but Simon is only one bad review. It may be a bad movie, but I'm gonna have to see more than one bad review before I choose not to go see it.

I saw plenty of bad reviews on Superman Returns, X-Men III, and Mission Impossible 3, and I loved every one of them.

I also saw plenty of great reviews on Pirates of the Carribbean DMC and I hated it.

To each his own, and here's to hoping I disagree w/ Simon on this one

Josh, I agree with you about not agreeing with Simon. I like fantasy films like this when they're done right. Chances are I'll see it anyway...unless I can find a special screening of a movie I REALLY REALLY wanna see this weekend.

Josh

I also like Mission Impossible III and Superman Returns and didn't particularly think Pirates of the Caribbean was that great. Not that keen on X Men III though.

Seriously though, I also like fantasy films when they are done right and I went into this with no expectations whatsoever as I knew virtually nothing about it. It's not as bad as Dungeons and Dragons (what film is ?) but I'd be surprised if it gets many good reviews. Im not trying to put you off seeing it but certainly dont go in expecting something of the level of LOTR or even the Chronicles Of Narnia.

One of the nice things is that I already have very low expectations. I hate getting really siked for a movie, and then having a let down. I recently had these movie going experiences with "The Prestige" and to some level "Casino Royale". Casino Royale was very entertaining, and I liked it more than the Prestige, but neither met my expectations based on the great reviews they were getting.

I'm guessing that if you polled all of the people on this forum, asking them for their greatest movie experience ever, 75% or more would say they went into the movie not knowing much about it.

You could be 100% dead on on this film Simon. I'm just hoping it can make for an enjoyable afternoon this weekend, and I am in no way expecting LotR. Probably more along the lines of Dragon Heart. After seeing your comments it looks as though our movie tastes are pretty similar. And of the three movies I listed (saying I loved) X-Men was probably more in the "liked" department, than "loved".

I'll give an update soon.

JC

I read the first book over a year ago and recently started the second with the movie coming out .... I didn't notice the Star Wars similarities untill I read this post lmao..... the book also seemed to borrow some other folklore type story elements from other fantasy writers as well like Ursula K. Le Guin's Earth Sea series among others .... not to take anything away from Christopher Paolini but it's kinda like he read alot of other novels and then made a literary Mashup

I have to stay away from this. It seriously is Star Wars (The second book confirms this without a shadow of a doubt), with the names all being ripped from LOTR.

Also how can anyone see the trailers for this and actually believe it is well made? Outside a dragon that looks like a hawk more then anything, it looks completely lost and fake. I think the LOTR proved you could make armor that actually looks effective, and heroes that can actually get dirty.

Elements of the LOTR trilogy Eragon has allegedly "borrowed" from:

Originally Posted by Sean Laughter
For further information, here's a list of various names from Eragon - and the names it liberally rips off:

Arya - Arwen, Arda
Ardwen - Arwen
Isenstar - Isengard
Mithrim - Mithrim or mithril
Eragon - Aragorn
Angrenost - Angrenost, the Sindarin name for Isengard
Morgothal - Morgoth
Elessari - Elessar
Furnost - Fornost
Hadarac Desert - Harad Desert
Melian - Melian
Vanir - Valinor
Eridor - Eriador
Imiladris - Imladris
Undin - Fundin/Udun

I was hoping this would be kind of like Krull or Dragonslayer. I'm a huge fan of those 80s flicks. I know it can be offputting when there is no originality. Last film I saw that borrowed nearly everything from other films was the japanese flick The Returner. And it still turned out to be quite fun. But I don't know about this one. Hopefully there will be more reviews and one that says "hey dude who loves Krull & Dragonslayer, go see this!!"

Hey Simon,

How would you compare the film to The Chronicles of Narnia. It seems that Eragon is going for that same audience. The film is coming out almost a year to the same date as Narnia.

Personally, I thought Narnia was just an o.k. film, nothing to run home and scream about. It was nowhere as good as King Kong, but damn it if that movie didn't make some money at the box office. The fact that Narnia wasn't as long as Kong really paid off. I assume Eragon is in the same vein.

As far as fantasy films go, Im actually looking more forward to Pan's Labrynth than Eragon.

Corey

I enjoyed Narnia and would say that this film gave me a greater appreciation of Narnia - it could have been just as bad. That said I have read the Narnia books as a child and had a connection to them - have never read Eragon.

Eragon is worse than Narnia IMO.

Pan's Labyrinth is great though!!!

??

I read an article not too long ago that made the point that Hollywood basically sees fantasy as a children's genre, which is probably why they grabbed the rights to Eragon, which is marketed much more to the "Harry Potter audience" than the mainstream fantasy audience that's buying up George RR Martin's novels. While I don't have any particular issue with Harry Potter or Narnia, I have admit that long-term it doesn't look very good for the genre on film.

Oh I disagree about Kong and Narnia, Corey. Kong might have had better technical aspects, but Narnia was a much more uplifting (and better told) story.

I agree Chris

Hummm...I'm now wanting to rent Narnia this weekend instead. I was hoping for another Neverending Story kind of experience with it and thought it might be worth a blind buy. But I don't have the money for that right now.

Pan sounds exciting. I'll have to check out the trailer when I get home.

Good thread!

Simon's informative review killed any interest I may have had in this film. I hate talking dragons.