Eragon

Eragon asks Sephira for a light which proves to be a mistake.

(2006) Fantasy (20th Century Fox) Ed Speleers, Jeremy Irons, Robert Carlyle, John Malkovich, Rachel Weisz (voice), Sienna Guillory, Garret Hedlund, Alun Armstrong, Djimon Honsou, Chris Egan, Gary Lewis, Richard Rifkin, Stephen Speirs, Joss Stone.  Directed by Stefen Fangmeier

Since the advent of Harry Potter and the onscreen Lord of the Rings trilogy Hollywood has been scrambling to cash in on the fantasy bandwagon. Whereas young adult fantasy fiction has all but dominated bestseller charts, other than J.K. Rowling’s juggernaut that hasn’t translated to box office gold as of yet.

This challenger for the title starts in the magical land of Alagaesia, although the inhabitants thereof would find little magic in their lot. Once a prosperous, kindly land, it has sunk into darkness and despair. Where once wise and just Dragon Riders maintained peace and justice, a despotic King rules with an iron fist. The most terrible thing is that Galbatorix (Malkovich) was once a Dragon Rider himself, but he betrayed and slew all the dragons save one egg, which his sorcerer Durza (Carlyle) is unable to destroy. The egg waits patiently for a Rider to bond with it before it will hatch.

In a feat of daring, Princess Arya (Guillory) steals the egg. With the King’s guards and his pet sorcerer hot on her trail, she finally runs out of time. Summoning the last of her strength, she uses a magic spell to transport the egg out of danger. The spell leaves her exhausted and she is captured by Durza.

Eragon (Speleers), a young farm boy, is out hunting when a bright light attracts his attention. He finds a bright blue stone, the like of which he’s never seen before. When he touches it, it burns him in a strange, reptilian pattern on his palm. He decides not to tell his Uncle Garrow (Armstrong) about what he has found, but rather goes into town to try to sell the item. When the shopkeeper finds out that Eragon picked it up in the King’s Preserve, he turns pale and tells him to get it out of the village at once lest it bring ruin on them all.

Disappointed, Eragon is sitting in the local tavern when he overhears Brom (Irons), the village whacko, talk about the near mythical Dragon Riders. This is broken up by King’s Guards, who don’t like the mention of the Riders. Eragon goes home to discover that what he thought was a stone was in fact an egg and it has hatched – a dragon. The dragon grows remarkably quickly into adulthood, and to Eragon’s astonishment, he discovers he can hear the dragon’s thoughts. She tells him her name is Sephira (Weisz) and that he is her rider.

Confused, Eragon seeks out the only man who seems to know anything about dragons – Brom. When Brom finally is convinced that Eragon is not lying, he warns him that his life is in danger – the King will want him and his dragon slain. Eragon realizes that his Uncle Garrow is in mortal danger and races back for the farm, but is too late. Garrow has been murdered. The two must flee, and Brom is dead set on taking Eragon to the Varden, rebels against the King who live in inaccessible mountains. Durza, however, is hot on their trail and his spies are everywhere. Eragon is hot-headed and impulsive, and clashes with Brom at nearly every turn. Add to that visions of Arya that move Eragon to seek her out with some urgency and it looks like his destiny to reclaim justice and peace for Alagaesia may end before it begins.

The big knock on this movie has been that it borrows quite heavily from both The Lord of the Rings and Star Wars mythologies. Quite frankly, the story of Eragon seems to have been lifted from the original Star Wars virtually intact. That’s not a sin in and of itself; both of those stories were plundered from mythologies even more ancient than their own. Still, Eragon doesn’t seem to have any sort of fresh perspective to the tale; instead, this seems to be a re-telling more than anything. One has to keep in mind that original author Christopher Paolini was a teenager at the time; for his age he’s a terrific writer but let’s face it – he’s got a long way to go to be up there with Tolkein, Brooks and Jordan. Still, you have to give the kid some slack.

To the good, it has some nice performances from Irons, Carlyle and Malkovich. Speleers doesn’t do spectacularly well, but he at least fares better than the wholly wooden performance of Hayden Christensen in the second Star Wars trilogy. The CG dragon Sephira is also magnificent; she looks like a cross between a bird and a dinosaur, and comes off as a magnificent creature with an underlying personality. She’s half the reason to see the movie.

As fantasy movies go, this one doesn’t fare too badly thanks largely to some of the veteran actors in it who at least give it the old college try, even if the material is somewhat cliche and unremarkable. However, if you’re looking for another Lord of the Rings or even another Harry Potter, look elsewhere. Fox hedged their bets by only committing to filming the first book. I didn’t see a particular reason to continue with the second, and unless the box office picks up and I would imagine the accountants at Fox won’t either.

WHY RENT THIS: Spectacular CGI dragon and sterling performances from Irons, Malkovich and Carlyle.

WHY RENT SOMETHING ELSE: Uninspired, derivative storyline lifting unashamedly from Star Wars and Lord of the Rings. Speleers doesn’t make a particularly charismatic leading man.

FAMILY MATTERS: There are some semi-graphic battle sequences, a few images that aren’t for the squeamish and some fantasy violence.

TRIVIAL PURSUITS: Alex Pettyfer was offered the role but turned it down because the movie was filming in Budapest and he was afraid of flying, a fear he has since gotten over.

NOTABLE DVD FEATURES: There’s an interview with Paolini on the trilogy of books he has written (for which Eragon is the first) as well as a look at the second book in the triology (which would never be filmed and doesn’t look like it will be anytime soon).  This is available only on the two-disc DVD and Blu-Ray editions.

FINAL BOX OFFICE PERFORMANCE: $249.5M on a $100M production budget; the movie was only slightly profitable.

FINAL RATING: 6/10

TOMORROW: Insidious