Eragon

March 20, 2007

Rated: PG Runtime: 104 min Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

When I’d read that the runtime for Eragon was a bit under two hours, I immediately lowered my expectations to just above nil. Which was a shame since I’d read the book and quite enjoyed it. It was penned by a 16 year old kid who writes far beyond his years and, while it was certainly no “Lord of the Rings”, it was pretty decent epic fantasy. Unfortunately, after viewing only the first 15 minutes of the movie, I realized that “just above nil” was far too high.

Eragon Peter Jackson knew a thing or two about epic fantasy - namely that you can’t squeeze 4+ hours of material down to less than 2 and have it be any good. Unfortunately, the studio execs don’t give a damn. Nevermind that the LotR series made MEGA bucks despite the extremely long runtimes and subsequent fewer screenings per day at the theater! Whoever made the call on Eragon obviously had little faith in the material or the chosen director (sfx Golden Boy, Stefen Fangmeier in his directorial debut) and decreed that this epic story would be squeezed into a normal Hollywood run time.

Poor Mr. Fangmeier was given a great big shit sandwich and he gamely tried to eat it. But you can only hit a baseball so far with a wiffleball bat. Great chunks of the story from the book which took weeks to unfold are accelerated on screen in only a matter of minutes…and in one painful example, near instantaneously and with no explanation. And if the critical elements of the story are being crunched like this, you can imagine what has happened to the history and color of the world created by teen author Christopher Paolini. They are quite simply left out entirely.

If you haven’t read the book at all, however, the movie won’t piss you off quite as bad because, as the saying goes, you won’t know what you’re missing. It still won’t be a great movie (hence the two star rating), but you might be able to dismiss it as a too-fast paced mediocre fantasy movie with pretty good special effects.

If, however, you did read the book or bought it on Audio CD, you will loathe this movie with every fiber of your being. For me, I haven’t hated a movie this much since Highlander 2.

Posted by Alex | Filed Under 2 Stars, Action, DVD, Ed Speleers, Jeremy Irons, John Malkovich, PG, Robert Carlyle, Sienna Guillory