Eragon, the most highly advertised movie in a long while, opened yesterday. Brandon and I had the day off so we went to a nearly empty theatre for the 12:30 show, an Orange Julius in hand (pina colada with banana actually).
Overall I give the movie a B rating. Fortunately I haven't read the book yet, so I was saved any disappointment on that account. It is an entertaining fantasy film, appropriate for older children, but a bit too scary for younger ones.
Let me first tell you the good things. Good storyline, great special effects, really bad badguy, good acting, cool dragon, good chemistry between characters, good characters (though many were underdeveloped). Sadly, the film was less than 2 hours long and it left something to be desired. You wanted to see more development of the boy, more of his training, more of his mentor, more development of his dark friend, more of his learning fighting, the elvish language, and magic, etc.
The biggest problem with this film can be described in one word, "formulaic." Even if I spelled that wrong, it is an accurate description. They took what appeared to be a great story, cut it too short and Hollywooded it too much. Some pretty poor scriptwriting and some cliche lines and predictable happenings made it kind of weak.
All that said, I still recommend it and think most of you will enjoy it. We did.
3 comments:
The boy who wrote the book was only 15 and I heard he also stars in the movie...This may be a lie, but if not, that's awesome.
Thanks for the review. My 11 and 10 year olds have been talking about it forever....
The book's writer is not in the movie, but he was only 17 when he wrote the novel. Pretty cool.
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