Eragon

Eragon (2006)

HBO On Demand, Seattle, WA

November 13, 2007

** 1/2 / ****

It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s a ventriloquist blue dragon that sounds like Rachel Weisz! Derivative to the max, Eragon is a computer graphics extravaganza and a peculiar mix of Star Wars, Harry Potter, and The Lord of the Rings told in fast forward. The story of a farm boy who learns his destiny lies as a dragon rider who one day saves the world, Eragon accelerates from Star Wars death at home tactics to Harry Potter wizardry to a Lord of the Rings final confrontation with a black clad baddie in the blink of an eye. It all sort of works, that is, if you’re able to sit back, let the camp and silliness flow over you and simply enjoy the pretty sights of first time director Stefen Fangmeier. Then again, if you’re in the mood for a “good” movie, you’d best look elsewhere. Eragon isn’t even close.

Many will hate on Eragon in an instant, and justly so. The movie quickly disposes of the necessary steps it requires for a boy to transform from a farmer to a dragon riding, spell casting, wraith slaying machine and hardly blushes in the process. No doubt Eragon is a film bent on getting where it needs to go as quickly as possible and if character development gets abandoned in favor of instant character change so be it. Flash, beautiful vistas, and instant character change are the order of the day, for better or worse, and in sum equate to a rash decision that will not sit well with either fantasy obsessives or critics. And the more one considers the plot as is, the easier it is to side with the haters.

The examples of character evolution silliness are numerous. For instance, do you wonder why Edward Speeler’s boy wonder, Eragon finds it easy to manipulate magic, slay well-trained militia men, and do flips on the back of a soaring dragon within days of discovering his destiny? Don’t, because there are no answers to be found in the film. How about Jeremy Iron’s Brom, the requisite sage in the tattered clothes? When we first discover Brom, the boy’s future mentor, he is a blabber mouthed mess, slumping in the shadows and talking all manner of nonsense. Give the boy a glowing blue egg with a dragon inside and suddenly Brom is a master leader, navigator, and dragon expert with the fiercest sword play this side of Errol Flynn. Again, just don’t question the how or why because the script provides no answers.

For all its guffaws and character inconsistencies, in the end I surprisingly didn’t regret the hour and a half I spent listening to and watching this slightly messy fairy tale. While the film contains a slew of hits and misses throughout the teeter never quite totters either way. But just for fun, let’s list them: The misses include a no presence lead actor (Speelers), his inconsistent mentor (Irons), and a horribly camp evil king (John Malkovich). On the flipside, the hits feature a gruesome baddie (the always reliable Robert Carlyle), excellent special effects, and the boy’s chatty yet thoughtful and daring dragon, Saphira (Rachel Weisz). The biggest hit, which could also be considered its biggest miss, is how Eragon diverges from the Harry Potter and Rings series: choosing haphazard efficiency over bloated and long-winded dramatics. By failing to stretch its story to unnecessary lengths, as is often the case in the fantasy genre, Eragon succeeds in avoiding overly long set-ups by jumping too quickly into character change rather than character development. If only the film could find some middle ground then we’d have a good fantasy tale on our hands. As is, the story gets pushed along much too quickly and never provides a fair conclusion (it’s all setting up for a sequel a la Pirates of the Caribbean 2). Nevertheless, Eragon is satisfactory mindless entertainment with a pretty sheen that ends when it should and keeps us intrigued throughout.

As recommendations go, I can’t quite give the thumbs up to Eragon. Its inability to move characters along in a fair manner and overall inconsistency and camp silliness sink it well before it sets up for the sequel. For a lazy Sunday afternoon, Eragon is fine if you’ve nothing else to do. Otherwise, it can easily be skipped entirely.