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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Man in the Funny Hat" data-source="post: 3230369" data-attributes="member: 32740">Just got back from seeing it.  I have not read the book(s) nor even knew anything more than the title when I walked in.A bad performance in the lead role - wooden.  It's not all the actors fault as the scripting was obviously HEAVILY hacked from the first scenes.  I could just FEEL the fact that there were massive amounts of material that was being cut and the script utterly failed to properly move the material from novel to screenplay format and retain any special cachet it might have had.It LOOKED allright but there was absolutely no sense of PLACE, of a living, breathing fantasy world.  References were made to other races and places but they were strictly throwaway.  They were tossed out at us without preamble and then left to hang embarrasingly alone in the air without any follow-up exposition to justify their presence.  We saw a map several times but it meant NOTHING.  Reference was made to people "over there" but no indication where HERE was represented on the map.  No names could be read.  No identification of notable landmarks or terrain features.  No mention is ever made of direction of travel except, "we need to go there," or, "that's in the wrong direction."  Not North, South, etc.  If Eragon's hometown had a name I would SWEAR it was never mentioned.  It was all, "we need to found a route through THESE hills," when it should have been, "The Coffee Hills are now full of people looking for us - we'll have to find another route.  The land being portrayed on screen was quite empty of people for being a Luke Skywalker story about joining up with the last of the Rebellion in their dead-end stronghold.  We are similarly given no adequate sense of the amount of passing time.  Is it days?  Weeks?  How long ARE they travellng?  How far is it REALLY to get where they're going?  How is it that opposition forms AHEAD of their arrival?We are given no reason whatsoever to care about the plight of the hero because - the hero really has no adequate plight...Begin spoiler text[SPOILER]Two lads in the village are pressed into the army of the "Evil" oppressive king.  Eragons half-brother leaves the village to avoid a similar fate.  A girl is taken captive by forces of the king and her guards(?) killed as she tries to keep the "rock" she stole away from the king - an encounter utterly unseen and unknown by Eragon.  That's it.  That's the great shroud of evil against which Eragon is destined to fight.  Okay, that's not pleasant, but it's hardly a good sample of getting the audience to identify with the hero.  So then Eragon gets his dragon and his uncle is killed - OFF SCREEN - while the sinister agents of the king try to find and kill Eragon.  These plot points are presented with all the interest and panache of a paperweight.  It does not improve as the movie progresses, not the least reason for which is that we later get people stating that they have heard rumors of a new dragonrider - yet WE never see anyone who witnesses anything that might really lead to that rumor (certainly not to the point where such rumors PRECEDE his arrival at any given place.)  Eragon's not saying anything.  The one or two individuals he travels with aren't exactly shouting "DRAGON RIDER APPROACHING!" as they move along.  And it's made clear that the king and his minions don't want word to get around.  So how does anyone "hear rumors" of a new dragonrider?[/SPOILER]End spoiler textCGI is adequate with few exceptions.  A few adequate fights, but never anything that would have anyone but a 7-year-old feeling any kind of dramatic tension.  Indeed the whole movie, the entire screenplay lacks dramatic tension.  Coming out of it it felt like it was a 2-hour piece of introduction and expostion that you might get at the outset of a 6-episode mini-series.  Like something you kind of acknowledge that you have to sit through at the start to appreciate any of the good stuff later on - except you know that that was IT.  It's over.  In a couple years there may be a sequel.  You might want to see it but it won't be because THIS movie has instilled any such desire.Those that I attended the movie with (ranging in age from single-digits to 30's) had actually read the book together with enthusiasm in the two weeks prior to the films release came out.  They universally said how disappointed they were, how so many locations and events that would have been of more interest had been left out, and those that were included had been heavily - and seemingly pointlessly revised.  I asked, "So it had nothing but NAMES in common with the book?" to which the reply was, "No, not even that."  I don't know how accurate those sentiments might be - but I could sense VOLUMES of omission of plot and story throughout the movie without having known a thing about the actual plot, characters, and story.  We got home and watched a few minutes of Return of the King playing on TBS.  Naturally the conversation instantly turned to how it was an example of how to do this sort of thing RIGHT.  Even Professor T. got his worked HACKED in places to make it into a proper film format, but what we just left at the theater... ?Now I did get some interest and entertainment out of it.  Despite it's clear failures it wasn't a total waste of time.  More to the point of the OP it wasn't the EMBARRASSMENT to the genre that [a certain movie which shall remain nameless] was.  Jeremy Irons actually gives a decent performance here and to his credit his part (like all the parts in this one) was nearly as devoid of written character as... that other movie.  So it's not so much that there's anything really BAD to say about it (aside from terrible screenplay & adaptation) as that there's nothing at all to genuinely recommend it.</blockquote>

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