Eragon

Well, me and "the gang" went to see this on Saturday, with the intention of having a meal afterwards which, despite the valiant attempts of Kirsty, looked rather unlikely as we'd not managed to book anywhere. And then I had to go and read the reviews of this film......whoops.

"Not as good as the book."
"Bloody awful transition to film."
"A travesty given the source material."
and so on....

Well, I thought to myself, I haven't read the book, so maybe it's a case of Harry Potteritis. And I have to say: I think that's the case. Of the eleven of us, only one has read the book. He thought the film was bloody awful. The rest of us were suitably entertained for a couple of hours. Still; how much attention he was giving to the film is debatable, since he was there with his new girlfriend and they sat on their own, near the back, youknowwhati'm sayin'?

So, the basic plot: Young poor farm boy living with his uncle discovers he has a destiny and special powers, goes off to battle the evil empire which is ruled by an ex-guardian of peace who turned on the other guardians. Boy goes off to find the rebels in hiding, on the way rescues a princess from an impenetrable fortress during which his mentor gets killed and in the end, he has a big fight with another person with powers who likes black and has a terrible complexion.

Hang on a minute.........

As one of our group¹ pointed out: What are the odds that a boy with a name only one letter away from dragon, would end up as a dragon rider? Must be a million to one shot!

There are a few annoyances with this film, the biggest for me being that the armour that the rebels make for the dragon and prop up against a wall bears no resemblance what-so-ever to the armour that the dragon actually wears. This wouldn't be so bad if not for the two scenes being about two minutes apart. And Eragon learns how to ride a dragon and master magic a little too fast for my liking. I usually prefer such things to take a couple of month's hard study, but he learns everything in about a week.

The battle sequences are impressive and I liked the idea of seeing the battle from the dragon rider's perspective, which I've not seen before. The blurring and twists and turns really bring the movie out. Jeremy Irons is bloody good in this. Given the last film to have dragons and Jeremy Irons in it was Dungeons and Dragons, I was pleasantly.....surprised is not the word; pleasantly relieved to find he was enjoyable in his role.

And then came John Malkovich. Scenery chewing is not even close to describing his acting in this film. At the end of shooting, I don't think they needed to break the set. I think they just starved John for a couple of days, then locked him in the studio and left him to his own devices. Also: what kind of idiot keeps a dragon behind a curtain? That's just cruel and one hell of a fire risk. Health and safety'd have him in an instant for that one.

Overall it's not a fantastic movie like Lord of the Rings (which it SO wants to be), but it's a good yarn and the dragon looks "boke" as I believe one of the young gentlemen in the audience said.

In summary: The general consensus is: If you've read the book, AVOID. If not, then you'll probably like it.

OQ: 'It doesn't look so bad from up here...'

OOQ: 'I swear to god if she turns out to be his sister, I'll vomit in three different colours...' ²

Score:

Film: Somewhere between a C+ and B-, so probably a C++ or B-- which are actually equivalent on the Saxon Film Scale.
Book: Ain't read it, can't comment.
L'amoré: Ahh...

Trivia: Alex Pettyfer (he played Alex Ryder in Stormbreaker) was offered the role of Eragon, previous to the casting of Ed Speleers. Pettyfer says he turned down the role partly because Eragon was being filmed in Budapest and he's afraid of flying. From IMDB.com In a film about riding the backs of dragons, I find that priceless! However most of the trivia seems to be about people who were offered roles and turned them down.

¹ Yeah, it was me, actually. You guys know me so well.....

² Yeah, that was me too.