The movie is based on popular fantasy novels by Christopher Paolini who started writing the book series when he was 15. I haven’t read any of the novels yet, but they should be much better than the movie due to their popularity.
A newcomer, Edward Speleers, plays Eragon, our main character. He is a poor farm boy who finds a dragon egg that mysteriously appears when he is hunting. There is a brief scene explaining how the egg appears to Eragon, but it lefts a lot of assumptions to the audience. The dragon egg belongs to the ruthless King Galbatorix played by John Malkovich. The king knows that when the egg hatches, the boy who finds it will come to defeat him. Therefore, he sends Durza, his sorcerer, to bring the egg back or to kill the boy.
A dragon called Saphira emerges from the egg and it can communicate telepathically with Eragon. By fate, they meet with Brom, an aging dragon rider who dreams that someday, someone will overthrow King Galbatorix. Brom tags along with the pair and he becomes Eragon’s mentor.
The movie ends with a battle between King Galbatorix’s soldiers led by Durza and separatists who live in the mountain supported by Eragon. The final showdown is a duel between Eragon the dragon rider and Durza.
This movie that has a great potential, but its delivery fails to meet my expectation. There are many unexplainable things so the audience is left wondering. Some questions that come to my mind are how the egg comes to Eragon, why King Galbatorix does not destroy the egg since the beginning, and why the heck Brom visits that village.
The learning journey of young Eragon also feels too fast. It seems like he becomes a mighty warrior from a farmer in a very short period of time. The casts perform decently throughout the movie. Edward Speleers played well as a newcomer, I bet many girls are googling his name after watching the movie. Jeremy Irons as Brom is great and Robert Carlyle is quite suitable as Durza. I cannot comment on John Malkovich because what he did is only hissing orders once in a while.
The final battle is also disappointing. Basically it is only two groups of people who fight against each other with Saphira blowing fire from above. I am surprised if there is no casualty from the separatist side because of the fire. The duel is better with the support of good CGI. It seems that the sequel is on the way showing the battle between Eragon and King Galbatorix. The director and script writers should show a lot of improvements.
For further information on the movie, you can try this link:
- IMDB: Eragon.
"Whoaa, slow down!"
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