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While it owes much of its appeal and appearance to theLord of the Ringstrilogy,Eragoncan stand on its own as an enjoyable fantasy for younger viewers. Faithfully adapted from the bestselling novel by teenage author Christopher Paolini, this boy-and-his-dragon tale offers clean, fast-paced family entertainment without compromising the darker qualities of Paolini's novel (the first in what is known as the "Inheritance" trilogy). The plot centers on 17-year-old peasant farmboy Eragon (played by appealing newcomer Ed Speleers) who discovers a mysterious blue object that turns out to be an egg that eventually hatches to reveal Saphira, a blue-scaled dragon that quickly grows to full-size. According to prophecy, Eragon is destined to be a dragon-rider like those who once protected a benevolent kingdom, thus reviving an ancient conflict against the army of King Galbatorix (John Malkovich), a former dragon rider who turned to evil, now in alliance with a dark-magic "Shade" sorcerer named Durza (Robert Carlyle). While the movie serves up familiar fantasy elements and offers little if anything new to fans of the genre (or anyone who's read the books of Anne McCaffrey and Ursula K. Le Guin), it's visually impressive (especially the dragon scenes, with Rachel Weisz providing the telepathic "voice" of Saphira) and full of timeless wisdom, much of it delivered by Eragon's heroic mentor Brom (Jeremy Irons), himself a former dragon rider with memories of past battles and hope for Eragon's future. Add a fair warrior-maiden named Arya (Sienna Guillory) and you've got all the ingredients for a worthwhile (if not particularly original) fantasy that points directly to a sequel. Whether that's a good or a bad thing is up to individual viewers to decide. --Jeff Shannon
EragonExtras
Christopher Paolini lists his book and film inspirations and makes recommendations for fans ofEragon, click here to view the complete list.
Build and customize your very own dragon with "Volksdragon".
Decent Fantasy Flick First off, I have never read the books, so I had no preconceived ideas of what this movie should have been. With that in mind, I really had no problem with this movie. For me, it's not as good as LOTR or the Harry Potter movies, but it's better than Narnia or that awful Dungeons&Dragons movie. The movie is about Eragon who happens upon a Dragon egg and finds out he is chosen as a Dragon Rider. That pretty much sets up the rest of the movie with him learning to deal with all that comes with that. The acting is decent throughout and although some of the dialog is kind of weak, it's not that big a deal - I've seen plenty worse. Also, realizing this is supposed to become a trilogy makes it easier to look past some of the storylines that are a bit thin as well. If you're a fan of the books, then I think the other reviews will tell you how much you will like this movie, but if you never read the books and just want to check out a decent Fantasy movie then you shouldn't be too disappointed in this. You might even like it.... imagine that.
Unwatchable Movie I would love to say I enjoyed the movie. But the poor manufacturing of the DVD produced a disc loaded with artifacts. I've literally watched hundreds of DVDs on my player from movies to television shows, and this was the first disc I could not watch. I even exchanged the DVD and the second disc behaved the same way.
Avoid the frustration and read the book.Short Where's the rest of the story/movie? I will start by saying I have NOT read this book but I may go back and read it now to see what was missing.
The movie was not bad, but it was WAY too short. You could tell there was so much storyline missing from the story. You hardly got a chance to know any of the characters before something monumentous happened. Eragon has a baby dragon. Eragon hears a guy talking about dragon riders. Eragon decides the dragon needs to fly and when it does it suddenly morphs into a full-sized dragon who can mind speak. Eragon goes on a journey with the guy who was talking about dragon riders. Big chase, confrontation, big chase again, big battle, the end. Whatever happened to character developement. Did the secondary characters really mean that little to the whole of the story? An hour and a half is not nearly long enough for this movie and must have been a great insult to the book. So much more should have been done. I enjoyed the film, but was left wanting.
Christopher Paolini lists his book and film inspirations and makes recommendations for fans ofEragon, click here to view the complete list.
Build and customize your very own dragon with "Volksdragon".
