Eragon
I saw Eragon on opening weekend. I loved the books and I was geeking out over the prospect of a movie, which I thought would be a film (there IS a difference). God, was I wrong.
The movie started out as pure shit, and then went even further down the shit scale to that watery stuff that shoots out your ass when you eat olestra or drink too much. John Malkovich, Jeremy Irons and Robert Carlyle are in this piece of shit. With names like that, you would think that you would have the next Lord of the Rings on your hands, especially considering the source material. Speaking of source material, I am about to ruin both book and movie for you in this review, more so the movie. So keep reading...
It starts out with Jeremy Irons as Brom narrating the back story; Galbatorix (the villain, played by John Malkovich) has a “stone” stolen from him, and they show him sitting on his thrown, and he says (and I FUCKING QUOTE!):
“I suffer without my stone. Durza, don’t make me suffer.”
First, two books have been released in the Inheritance Trilogy (Eragon) so far, and we have YET to meet this Galbatorix. So, now I have met him, and he is an effeminate Shakespearian over actor. I think John Malkovich is a great thespian, but he should not have his name attached to this garbage in any way. Now it’s too late, and he’s forever tainted.
Then we meet Durza, played by Robert Carlyle, but I’ll get to that later. Let’s get to the main character, Eragon, played by some British kid. The kid can act, but as I like to tell anyone who is willing to listen to me delve into the art of film making, actors are only as good as the script and the director. In the book and in the crap I just saw, he is clearly based off of Luke Skywalker. But who doesn’t like Star Wars, right? Exactly, so in the books, I am willing to overlook that and the fact that he lives with his uncle on a farm after his parents left him. Seriously, the first book of Inheritance is nothing but Star Wars and Lord of the Rings melded together in some sort of dork fandom. But it worked. In the book, that is.
On celluloid, not so much. Doesn’t work. Especially when you have a director who doesn’t know shit about directing. This is his first film. Some people will say I shouldn’t hold this movie against him, but they are fucking fools. I was thinking of not even mentioning his name because of my love of the art form, but I decided to fuck it. Stefen Fangmeier. This fucking Fagmeier fella even went so far as to mimic the fucking sunset that Luke looked at before shit hit the fan.
See, the movie pi was pure brilliance, and was also a debut film as far as I know, so being a novice is no fucking excuse. Aronofsky obviously has a love for the art of film making. (Note from your beloved editor: It was his fourth, dumbass. I know this because I looked it up in the Internet Movie Database. That is why I am the editor and you are the hack. I should give myself your raise – too bad I don’t have any use for Monopoly money.)
THEN to top it all off, they made Obi-Brom a fucking drunk. In the book he was a respected member of the community, and I am NOT letting “artistic liberties” slide with this one, because I loved Batman Begins. Eragon has a shitty script, lousy directing, and actors that must have needed a paycheck. Badly.
Think I’m almost done? Go pee and come back, because I sure as hell am not done with my constructive criticism.
The story itself focuses on Eragon, a farm boy who finds a polished blue stone in the mountains. An elf named Arya magics it to Eragon while he is out hunting. He figures he could get a good dime from this weird stone, but no one in the village wants anything to do with it, because it was found in the mountains, and they are cursed, allegedly.
Anyway, the rock turns out to be an egg and a dragon comes out. In the book, the dragon grew fast, but not too terribly fast. About a month or three passed before it was big enough to ride. In the movie, it gets struck by lightning and is grown instantly. It is as wise as Solomon and even names itself. 
Well, like I said before, The King is not happy that his egg (stone, remember?) was stolen, so he sends a bad ass motherfucker named Durza to get it back. Durza is so bad, he can’t trouble himself with some farm boy, so he sends his henchman Ra’zac after Eragon. They proceed to burn his Uncle and farm to a cinder, so the boy leaves to become Jed... a dragon rider under the tutelage of Brom, the bard of the village (who better?).
Now, in the movie, Eragon seems to know everything that’s going on, and isn’t that sad that his life went up in smoke. How he knew this, I have no fucking idea. Maybe I missed something. It was around this time, The Lady and I started to crack jokes to each other.
Anyway, Eragon decided he was going to save an elf maiden... wait, in the movie, no mention of her being an elf was ever made. So he goes to save this chick, and Brom tells him “THAT’S 15 LEAGUES AWAY!” So Eragon rides his dragon, all day long, and gets there before sunset. Once there, Brom shows up in record time. Seriously, he just walks up and says, “I thought you would need some help.” Goddamn, I think to myself. He must be The Flash to get there that fast. Or maybe he has a dragon of his own that we didn’t get to meet.
Anyway, Eragon goes into this temple, wearing a cloak.
“ONNGA OOKA NOK JEDI!” I say a little too loud, but the people next to me bust out laughing.
So there is Eragon, ready to show down with a Bad Mother Fucker, but Brom shows up (again) and gets killed – much like a certain Obi-Wan got slayed by Vader in a certain other movie that shall remain nameless. So Eragon shoots Durza in the head with his bow, and Durza vanishes. So they bury Brom and split to Hoth, er... the Varden, which is where some sort of Rebellion is going on in the Dirty South of that land.
Good God and Almighty Damn, the actors they got to play the rebels wore the worst bunch I have ever seen on screen. It was like they were working off cue cards or some shit. Oh, and Durza shows back up, rallying rip-off Orks. This time he looked like Peter De Vries from David Lynch’s Dune - even down to the stained lips. But when I bust out with “It is by will alone I set my mind in motion” no one got it, and I was told to shut up. But then Durza started to talk, and it was at this time I decided that somewhere along the line, the cast of this movie had said “Fuck it” as well. Robert Carlyle dropped his fake accent and sounded like a drunk Scotsman. So imagine my amusement when he is rallying the troops.
The only thing that was worth a damn in this chunk of shit were the FX when it came to Saphira, Eragon’s dragon. That’s it. Even the swords looked plastic. And in the beginning, I thought I saw someone wearing a pair of jeans and Nikes. Weird. That’s how they ROLL in medieval-esque settings I guess.
I’m not going to spoil the end, but if they make a sequel... I will probably see it. Goddamn it.
