Director: Stefen Fangmeier
Writer: Peter Buchman, based on the novel by Christopher Paolini (kind of…)
Starring: Edward Speleers, Jeremey Irons, Rachel Weisz (voice), Robert Carlyle, John Malkovich, Sienna Guilory
For those unfamiliar with the story, Eragon is the tale of a young boy, Eragon, who discovers a dragon egg and so becomes the last remaining Dragon Rider throwing him into the centre of a civil war against the evil king, Galbotorix. I picked up Eragon in novel form at a train station on my way home for Christmas. Between the 3 hour train journey home, the three hour train journey back and a couple of late night reading sessions before bed, I had finished the book in a touch over a week. That’s almost unheard of for me. The only things I’ve read that avidly are books by Steven Erickson or George R. R. Martin and the His Dark Material’s trilogy by Philip Pullman. Eragon, and its sequel Eldest bear quite a lot in common with Pullman’s trilogy. They are both series of fantasy novels written with the young adult, a misnomer if ever I heard one, in mind. The writing in neither series was ground breaking, but both series of books are incredibly entertaining page turners and truly good yarns. The reason I picked up Eragon was because it was on special offer because of the imminent release of its film adaptation. Having seen the trailer and the respectable cast, I was pretty optimistic of a decent film, and was planning to go see it even before reading the book. Sad to say having now seen the movie I am doing everything in my power to purge the experience from my memory.
The number of potential criticisms that can be leveled at Eragon the movie are so numerous it’s hard to know where to begin. Probably, the biggest killer for me was that this is an adaptation of the book only in as much as it has some of the same characters and the same title. The actual content of the two stories is almost entirely different from beginning to end. The entire story of the book hinges on you feeling you are part of Eragon’s journey and experiencing it with him. The film hacks away so much of the events of the book, that Eragon’s mammoth journey across his native country appears little more than a trip down the road. This kills any sympathy you have for Eragon, or any sense of awe you might feel at his achievements. It also kills any pace that the original story had, kills any character development, such that when one of the main characters dies ¾ of the way through the film you barely care. Finally it kills all sense of grandeur. The story becomes epic fantasy without any sense of the epic
The rather unsympathetic editing doesn’t only affect the pacing of the story. It also means that several very important characters from the book are completely absent, and that the character of Murtagh, who is an important character in this story and pivotal in the second book, becomes little more than an extra. Even the characters that are included have so little time to establish themselves that they really have no personality, and that is reflected in what the actors manage to achieve. None of the performances are good, and some are just horrible. Not even veterans like Irons and Malkovich manage to pull their parts off. I was actually left wondering why so many decent actors signed up for the film; maybe they never saw the script until the first day of filming.
This is Fangmeier’s first outing as director, having previously worked at industrial light and magic. Given this pedigree you would at least expect some decent effects, but to be honest even those are a little lacklustre. One scene in particular of Durza emerging from flame looked like it was done using 70s quality blue screen technology. The only saving grace in this whole mess of a film is the dragon Saphira. Her realization on the screen is very well done, and her voicing by Rachel Weisz is spot on, so that she actually seems to have stepped from the pages of the book. I expect she was somewhat wondering who the strangers surrounding her were.
I would have liked to love this film. I thought with the example set by The Lord of the Rings we had finally seen the end of ham fisted, poorly thought out adaptations of fantasy novels. Unfortunately I couldn’t have been more wrong. There is nothing to recommend this film to anyone. I just hope that the negative press it garners won’t put people off buying the book, which is a fantastic little story. Spend the money on that instead. Stay in and read it to your kids, or if like me you resisted growing up, read it to yourself.
Having recently finished a PhD in Immunology Ross is currently working for a UK biotech company. He lives in Cambridge where he reads comics, spends too much money on music and attempts to learn Portuguese. He owns at least 7 lightsabers, yet still manages to have a very attractive girlfriend who he misses very much, thus proving anything really is possible.