I always like seeing movies over Christmas: generally, you get pretty decent seats, and most kids are out shopping or playing with gifts. This year, Mrs. Spandex Justice decided we should see Eragon, a movie based on some book by a teenager or something. All I knew was that it had dragons in it, so it at least had that going for it.
But, before we get into the movie, I want to review the movie going experience. This was our first time going to the movies in Massachusetts: we moved here from New Jersey and had gotten used to the theaters there. The one we went to was a Regal Theater, and it was generally good: stadium seating, nice screen and sound. But the previews before the movie were awful: every ad and preview seemed to have a commercial touting it. For example, there was a preview telling us to expect a preview of Evan Almighty, followed by some commercials, followed by the actual preview. They had commercials for commercials. Bleah.
Anyhow, Eragon was awful: it was a pastiche of Anne McCaffrey’s Dragonriders of Pern books, Tolkien, and a heavy dose of Star Wars (not that Star Wars is a bastion of originality: it steals from better sources, as well, but is a more consistent experience). It feels like the Eragon movie-makers ate a Dungeons & Dragons Dungeon Master’s Guide and barfed it up. It’s extremely derivative and cliched.
It doesn’t help that the actor playing Eragon, Edward Speleers, seems to be handsome enough, but has no idea what to do in scenes when other people are interacting: it’s distracting. But there really isn’t a lot for him to do, beyond being the pretty boy.
The movie also commits the same stupid mistakes as Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy: there’s a point in Eragon where the dragon, Saphira, magically ages in a matter of seconds. I’m going to guess that it takes a lot longer in the book. Jackson does the same thing when he has Frodo immediately set out on his quest, rather than the many month long wait in the book. Do they thing the audience is too impatient to spend a minute explaining how time has passed?
I’m also not sure who the audience of this movie is: fans of the book are not likely to enjoy the liberties taken with the characters and storyline, and casual movie goers are not likely to enjoy the completely generic storyline and characters that inhabit the movie. Seems like a lose-lose situation.
This entry was posted on Monday, December 25th, 2006 at 9:23 pm and is filed under Entertainment, Movies, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
The URI to TrackBack this entry is:
http://spandexjustice.com/2006/12/25/218/trackback
Responses to “Bad Movies: Eragon”
[...] I have tried to keep blogging over at Spandex Justice, which is the repository for my comic book reviews, as well as my general thoughts on popular entertainment. I just posted a review of the movie Eragon, for example. [...]
December 25th, 2006 at 9:33 pm |
I saw the trailers for this film and I thought, “ah, the movie studios got the idea to rip off the Pern books”. Then I googled it and saw that it was based on a book by a kid, who was ripping off Pern. Then I was remembered why I haven’t read new fiction in 10 years or so, and why I only see 2 or 3 films a year.
December 26th, 2006 at 12:03 am |
Finally went to see this yesterday; man, what a trainwreck. They basically took any of the complexity and shades of grey from the book and threw them out — not that the book was a masterpiece, mind you, but at least there was a bit more to the characterization than “King and Shade bad, everyone else, good.” As for the insane “Saphira grows up in under a minute” sequence . . . it made me head hurt. I mean, come on, would it have killed them to do a “time passes and Saphira grows” montage? Was it really so important to keep this under the 1 hour 40 minute mark?
January 3rd, 2007 at 3:18 pm |
“Was it really so important to keep this under the 1 hour 40 minute mark?”
Considering how bad it was? Yes, yes it was. I’d have liked to shave another hour and 35 minutes off myself. The only value that came from this movie is that I picked up McAffrey’s series to read again. Can’t wait until Copperheart finally gets that one up and going so we can have a real Dragonriders movie!
February 12th, 2008 at 9:30 am |