If Eragon goes on to become a holiday blockbuster, it is only because of the legions of fans who have loved the books, and not because of anything the movie itself displays on the screen. First time filmmaker Stefen Fangmeier has crafted a lifeless and inert clone of such recent fantasy hits such as the Lord of the Rings or the Chronicles of Narnia. And, just for good measure, the movie's plot lifts almost directly from George Lucas' original Star Wars movie almost to the point of plagiarism. The script is a mess and vastly underwritten, the performances are trite and uninspiring, and the special effects are often second rate and would be right at home in a made for TV movie on the Sci-Fi Channel. Eragon is the biggest misfire of a potential franchise I have seen since 2004's Van Helsing, which was also supposed to lead to many sequels, but stumbled right out of the gate.

Like the much better fantasy films that inspired it, Eragon begins with a land in turmoil as an evil ruler holds the people in constant fear. The evil ruler this time around is the rather generic King Galbatorix (John Malkovich), who has conquered the land with his vast army of demons and monsters, and now pretty much sits around in his castle, looking bored. As is to be expected, there is a prophecy that speaks of a "Dragon Rider" who will lead an uprising of people, and overthrow the king's rule. This idea does not appeal to Galbatorix, so he keeps the last-known dragon egg (which looked more like an oversized jelly bean, or perhaps a really big cold medicine tablet to me) hidden in his castle so that it can never find a "Rider". A brave young Princess named Arya (Sienna Guillory) manages to steal the egg, but is captured by the King's evil wizard Durza (Robert Carlyle) shortly after escaping. Fortunately, Princess Arya is able to cast a spell that teleports the dragon egg to a very convenient place, into the hands of innocent young farmboy Eragon (Edward Speleers). It seems that this very bland blonde-haired pretty boy who has the personality of a hunk of wood is the "Rider" the legends speak of. The egg hatches, revealing a dragon named Saphira, who eventually bonds with the boy telepathtically. (The dragon's telepathic "voice" being provided by Rachel Weisz.) Shortly thereafter, Galbatorix's demons start coming after Eragon. He must team up with a wise old warrior named Brom (Jeremy Irons) who will train the future Dragon Rider in combat so that he will be strong enough to lead a small band of rebels, rescue the Princess, and usher in a new film franchise that will make oodles of money for the Fox studio, provided people are stupid enough to fall for this movie.

The Eragon series began as a series of books that were written by a teenager named Christopher Paolini, and found a large audience with young readers hooked on the fantasy craze thanks to the Lord of the Rings films and the Harry Potter series. I have not read the books, so I cannot say with any certainty if the novels are as derivative or uninspired as this film adaptation is. The story does certainly read like it came from the mind of a teen who spent too much time watching Star Wars and playing fantasy RPG video games, and somehow got lucky enough to have his story get published. Eragon does not have a single original thought in its head, nor does it have a single moment we cannot predict, because we've literally seen everything before. We can predict who is going to live or die almost the second they walk onto the screen, because we've seen the exact same character types in other movies. The difference between this movie and the ones that it blatantly steals from is that these characters don't have a shred of life or personality within them. Everyone is simply going through the motions, acting exactly the way we expect them to, almost as if they've been preprogrammed and had anything resembling a personality removed from their souls before filming began. What few relationships the movie does decide to focus on (such as the one between Eragon and his dragon Saphira, or the one between Eragon and Princess Arya) come across as completely shallow and almost as a mere afterthought. The movie keeps on stressing that a Dragon Rider will grow stronger as his bond with his dragon grows, but because both Eragon and his dragon essentially stay the same way throughout the film, we never get the sense of a deep bond that I think the filmmakers intended.

Any chance of Eragon becoming a film franchise literally disappears right up there on the screen when you see how ineptly everything has been thrown together. The story is sometimes an incoherent mess, with things happening so quickly and with no explanation. (How the heck does Saphira the dragon grow from a weak little infant to a full-grown majestic beast in the course of less than two minutes?) There are also some very humorous plot holes, such as the way old warrior Brom somehow manages to show up to save young Eragon's life, even though the kid left him miles and miles behind, and there's absolutely no way the guy should have been able to make it to where Eragon was, unless he somehow possesses the magic of teleportation and the movie forgot to tell us. Everything is so completely underwhelming, you often wonder if the filmmakers were even trying. Eragon's world looks like it wishes it could be the Middle Earth depicted in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy, the dragon itself never quite convinces and looks more like a video game character than a flesh and blood creature, and the evil demons are severely disappointing, most of them either looking like Swamp Thing's distant relatives or professional wrestling rejects that have been told to roll around in the mud so they'd look more menacing. The climactic battle between Galbatorix's army and the rebels is less than inspiring, goes on for all of five minutes (if even that), and seems to be over mere moments after it starts. It certainly doesn't help that we could care less about the plight of the rebels, since Eragon met them less than 10 minutes before the battle begins. I'm going to give the original novel's author the benefit of the doubt, and assume that this is a severely hacked screenplay that rushes through the book's main plot points in a desperate attempt to tell the story.

Equally uninspiring is the cast, who simply cannot breathe life into the characters, no matter how much they may try. Newcomer Edward Speleers makes a very disappointing screen debut as the film's title hero. He fits the standard young hero type physically, but there is no life in his performance. Of course, it would help if his character's dialogue wasn't comprised almost entirely out of pointing out the obvious. Much like young Mr. Speleers, Sienna Guillory is pretty and looks the part of the Princess being held captive, but the script gives her nothing to do or say. Jeremy Irons at least tries to bring some talent to his portrayal of the wizened warrior Brom, but his character exists simply to explain the film's backstory to both Eragon and the audience, almost to the point that he comes across as a Narrator who somehow wandered into the story. Even the lead villain roles are completely forgettable, as these are easily the most uninspired villains to disgrace a feature film in many a moon. John Malkovich bellows his lines and bulges his eyes as the evil King Galbatorix, screaming about how he wants Eragon dead, but he literally does absolutely nothing during the film's entire running time. The film's final scene hints that he will play a larger role in the next film, but we find it hard to care when we see how uninteresting he is throughout this movie. As the king's head dark wizard (or "Shade" as the movie refers to him as), Robert Carlyle looks kind of like the long lost relative of Marilyn Manson with his gore-faced goth make up, and never comes across as a serious threat no matter how much he hisses as he recites his lines. The biggest disappointment to me was how flat Rachel Weisz sounds as the voice of the dragon. She is a fine actress, but she sounds downright bored whenever she "talks" to Eragon through his mind.

The only way I can see Eragon continuing on as a franchise is if they completely forget the first movie ever happened, and go in an entirely different direction with a new director, new cast, and definitely with a new writer at the screenplay level. Of course, in order for the franchise to continue, that would have to require this movie to be successful, and I sincerely hope that does not happen. There's nothing to recommend here, and nothing you haven't seen before and done better. If Fox thinks this movie is strong enough to launch a successful series of films, they need to wake up. Eragon is not the worst film of the year, but it is definitely one of the most underwhelming.

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