The Age of Commercialism

Memorable, crazy movie

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

When I saw this film in the theater, I fell asleep approx 15 minutes in and woke up at the end of the last shot before the credits rolled. It was that dull and boring.

Where to start - everything about this movie is so bad, the "acting", the script... and yet somehow, it's become my teenaged daughter's and my favorite cheesy movie for when we have no brain cells for anything that might make us think! You have John Malcovich slumming it and absolutely chewing on the scenery, ditto Jeremy Irons, a lead who's cute but couldn't act his way out of a wet paper bag, and every trope and cliche known to fantasy movie fans. The book it was "based" on (in the very loosest possible sense) is quite good, but this corrupts the plot in ways that must make the author cringe. The most egregious is the "romance" between the titular character, a boy of about 16 with all the lack of wisdom and maturity that implies, and a hundreds of years old elven princess - that she would even look at this child twice is just laughable. Still, if you're looking for a mindless unintentionally funny diversion, Eragon might just be your jam.

When I watched this movie I was a bit thoughtful. It reminded me a lot of a B version of "Lord of the Rings" or something like that. After some research, I discovered that it is based on Christopher Paolini's books. In fact, after blockbusters like "Harry Potter" or "Lord of the Rings", literature and cinema were filled with fantasies. On the other hand, the studios bet so high on these films that they try to force the making of trilogies and franchises. This is quite evident in this film, with its open ending announcing a sequel that wasn't made.The script is simple: a magical land was ruled by knights mounted on dragons and everything went well until they became corrupted, fought each other and one of them betrayed all the others, killing everyone and becoming a dictator. Now comes a new warrior, who must be able to unite the resisters and lead the revolt against him. Simple and predictable most of the time, the film never proves to amaze or move us. In fact, it's usually empty and insensitive, with a promise of romance that never materializes and the almost total absence of emotions. Even action scenes seem so unrealistic that we never feel real danger (partly because there isn't much empathy with the characters, so we never care about them).Ed Speleers is a stranger to me and is still very young, so I don't understand why they didn't hire a more experienced actor. It was a casting mistake and he was never up to the character. Jeremy Irons is excellent in his role and stars in some of the best scenes in the film. Rachel Weisz was competent in the task of giving voice to the dragon, Saphira. On the other hand, John Malkovich looks a lot like himself and Sienna Guillory was unlucky with her character, whose importance we will never know because the film would only reveal it in the sequel. I believe that the bad casting options and low acting performances is due to the bad material given to the actors. Another problem I felt was the editing of the film, which made it's rhythm rather irregular, with a lot of dead moments. Technical features, however, compensate these weaknesses: CGI's good and cinematography, colorful and bright, is a feast for our eyes. The choice of sets and the design of costumes were judicious and everything was thought to the smallest detail. The soundtrack, without being amazing, performs very well and suits what we are seeing on screen."Eragon" might have been much more interesting if they had made this film without thinking about sequels and if they had put in the main role another actor, more skilled in the task of showing feelings and gaining our empathy. Despite being a forgettable film and not deserving of being considered good, its regular enough to be watchable.

I didn't think this movie was as horrible as many make it out to be. It is not exactly "good" or, for the most part, "bad"... What I WOULD like to see, is someone actually try it again and stick more to the actual story line. There could be a trilogy there if done right. Love the books and I would love to see it done right, or at least better.