Reviews of Eragon

Eragon review

Posted : 2 months ago on 20 October 2009 02:05 (A review of Eragon)

Words fail me. This is the utmost cliched movie on the face of the earth. And I can't understand why. The cast here, besides the awful main character are all wonderful in most movies, and do do a good job here too. Robert Carlyle worked great as a villain, even though he was barely recognisable under the heavy make-up. John Malkovich does great, even though we propably see him for a massive ten minutes or so throughout the entire movie. The guy who plays the main character is terrible though, with his awful brittish accent and Orlando Bloom-ish manners. He does shout better than Orlando though, which is basically what he does throughout the entire movie.

I'm getting tired of talking about mediocre things, so let's talk about the script here, which is awful. First of all, Christopher Paolini's original is a terribly cliched book, but the script here, for some odd reason, was propably made by someone who had never even seen a screenplay before. Buchman skipped ALL the goddamn character development and overall meaningfull scenes, and added tons of utterly useless scenes such as that one where Carlyle is mad at his minions. What was the point of that scene? To show that he is a dominant force in the lines of evil? We knew that already for crying out loud. Then around the beginning of the movie, there's a fortune telling scene, because, well you know, you can't have a fantasy movie without a fortune telling scene now can you? Oh wait, I think I need to cough... *Cough*LOTR*Cough* Bless me. The dialogue is also a little too close to retarded, a departure from the relatively witty one in the book. I can't understand why they had to leave that dialogue out since it would've worked better than these classic lines like " That's the spirit - one part brave, three parts fool." Also, as a sidenote, in the movie that line sounds like the last word would be food.

Technically, this is a pretty damn mediocre movie. You have your run of the mill special effects, which should've been better since this movie is occasionally about nothing but CGI. The score.. or actually, the entire sound mixing of this movie is just fucked up. The score itself is decent, nothing to be nominated for an Oscar or such, but still. But the way it's been mixed to the movie is awful. You can barely hear the music, since for some ridicilous reason even during action scenes which really do need good music to be great the sound is just too damn low. Whoever edited/mixed the audio here was an idiot, plain and simple. He didn't know what he was doing. Which gets us to the director. Even though he kinda did know what he was doing, the directing here is simply meaningless. It doesn't feel like it was directed by a person, all the camera work and such are far too machine-like to make us feel like we would be watching something other than a movie.

I didn't like this movie all too much. It did however sorta keep me entertained and Robert Carlyle is always a blast. I still can't give it any higher than a 3/10 because some really important things were really fucked up here.

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The movie sucked

Posted : 1 year, 9 months ago on 14 March 2008 07:53 (A review of Eragon)

This movie sucked truly I have not seen a worse movie it's nothing like the book they make Roran seem like a coward and if the only good actor is a CGI Dragon you know something is wrong desperatly wrong this movie was horrible I didn't sit right through to the end for fear it would spoil the ending to the ending to the trilogy/Saga

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book probably better

Posted : 2 years, 4 months ago on 3 August 2007 06:22 (A review of Eragon)

Farm boy Eragon (Edward Speelers) comes upon a dragon's egg, sent by Princess Arya. One day, the dragon, Saphira, is born, and Eragon becomes the dragon rider who will set his people free from a tyrant, Galbatorix (John Malkovich).

I found the actors bland, weak, lacking in interpretation. I don't care for Malkovich usually, but even in this film, his acting wasn't what it could have been. Jeremy Irons' character on the other hand was quite despicable! and his acting was right on for the part.

The storyline was also pretty basic, and because the opening credits mentioned this was an adaptation of a book, I realized many situations might be missing from the screen.

Also, I didn't find the dragon Saphira, feminine enough. However, the special effects in general were well done, certainly not extraordinary but well done.

I'm giving it a 5, and I'm probably being generous, considering I haven't read the book. If I had, I probably would have given it a 3 or 4.

Not a bad choice for an action/sci-fi film, if you have nothing else to watch.


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Weak

Posted : 2 years, 8 months ago on 23 April 2007 01:33 (A review of Eragon)

There are times when a novel adapted to a movie can turn out as a masterpiece and then there are times when one just shouldn’t bother even thinking about it. This was one of those times. It’s ok if you haven’t read the book and never plan to but if you have, save yourself the trouble, just stick with the book.

For starters majority of the details were left out not to mention specific characters, the acting wasn’t exactly what it should’ve been and the characters were weak. Absolutely weak! They could’ve fleshed it out more. The movie didn’t even go for two hours so they had time to fit in some more details but instead they opted for trying to make it more dramatic by getting the actors to make stupid whimsical faces.

Don’t waste your time. It was so weak not even John Malkovich could save it and that’s saying something.

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What the...?

Posted : 2 years, 9 months ago on 11 March 2007 02:39 (A review of Eragon)

The book was overrated to begin with (and it was a wee bit of a ripoff of Star Wars and Lord of the Rings), but this book-to-movie adaption was just pathetic. It is a condensed version, at best, and really doesn't explain anything. So much is missed out from the book that it really doesn't seem worth it to me. I'm not going into too much detail, you can see for yourself. I didn't really like much of the acting, and I just have to ask... why does Durza look like a toned down version of Mortiis at times? (That might just be me...)

All that said it does have some nice effects (though the film does seem to be concentrated on them). I have to admit I went "awww" at the baby Saphira.

Now to avoid ranting about how every fantasy film seems to have a mandatory Scottish guy nowadays...

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disappointing

Posted : 2 years, 9 months ago on 7 March 2007 04:50 (A review of Eragon)

nothing here ... the book was not great, but ok, but the movie is an uninspirated collection of midlevel special effects ... they pushed every aspect of the story in a 2 min scene instead of concentrating on the points that matter.


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Good Movie!

Posted : 2 years, 11 months ago on 1 January 2007 05:10 (A review of Eragon)

I just saw this movie in the theater today about 2 hours ago! I enjoyed it sooo much. It made me think of Anne McCaffrey's Dragonrider series, but I would like to read the books! I'm actually looking them up on the library website RIGHT NOW :D It's worth seeing, but leaves itself open to sequels.

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Dragon Rider

Posted : 3 years ago on 20 December 2006 12:48 (A review of Eragon)

I enjoyed watching this movie. It moved at a good pace and had very good acting. The special effects were excellent by today's standards. I admit I haven't read the book, but the story seemed to flow very well. My daughter said they left out some events from the book that may have made the story better. I don't think this movie is in the same league as LOTR or Narnia, but it was worth spending an afternoon at the theater with my kids. They really enjoyed the movie like me. Worth the price of admission for the whole family.

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