Review of Eragon (2006) by Pevmaster — 19 Mar 2012

'This is the most original film ever made' would be something you would never hear about Eragon. Not only does it feel like it was written by a 2-year-old monkey , with horrible dialogue and bland, uninteresting characters, buit it also seems to enjoy stealing from every damn fantasy/sci-fi film out there. It's as if the writer went into a DVD store and rented out every friggin' sci-fi and fantasy film on the shelf, before putting each film in a boiling cauldron and mixing it into something evil. It's as if Star Wars and Lord of the Rings had a son, but this son is an ugly, stupid, bastard child with brain damage and problems with interacting with other kids.

Even if you can get past the horrible dialogue and generic, recycled plot, the acting is horrendous too. Composed of a cast of mostly nobodies, Eragon excels at making you cringe at the God-awful acting. In fact, the acting is so bad it's funny. Hearing generic-faced people utter generic lines such as 'we must destroy the empire!' and 'great power comes with great responsibility,' I found myself either laughing or sleeping throughout the whole movie. Mostly the latter.

Perhaps the one redeeming quality this film COULD have had is the effects. I'm definitely not saying that special effects should be valued over a good story (*cough* George Lucas *cough*) but in an alternate universe, if you could overlook the story and every other horrendous thing about this film the effects could make it worthwhile. That is not the case in this film. The graphics are generic and more cheesy than a packet of Doritos. Seriously, you just want to scream at this film 'WHY? WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY?!'.

But the saddest thing about this film is that it could have been SO MUCH MORE. Yes, the book this film is based on is hardly original either, but if the plot and setting was changed, the cast replaced by talented acters, a good writer penned the film, the dialogue got changed (or removed entirely) and the special effects were taken out, then this film MAY have become an enjoyable Winter blockbuster. Ah, who am I kidding, this film was a nuclear bomb even before the monkey started writing the script. May God rest that monkey's soul.