This weekend I watched the movie version of the popular book Eragon. Admittedly, I have never read it and since it had been turned into a series of several books, I do not doubt the popularity of the book.
The movie translation lacked many elements to make it a good fantasy movie.
It did have Jeremy Irons in it (who can play interesting, rough, sympathetic characters) and John Malkovich (who is articulately intense). So two big stars and the guy who was the African gladiator in the movie Gladiator. The kid who played Eragon (seemingly with British royal blood flowing through his veins) did a decent job. He looked like Heath Ledgers brother, or cousin at least.
But the acting (though a bit lackluster and diminished at times) despite having some heavy hitters did not dazzle me.
The computer graphic Dragon Safira was well done. She blended in with the background well and did not look too CG and interacted with the real actors without any troubles.
Something was missing. Perhaps it was story. I could imagine (as with most book adaptations) that swaths of story whipped by and my writer's brain tried to fill in the blanks. Only important scenes were used to move the plot. But there were elements which raised questions in my mind that perhaps would not have been raised if I had read the book. Several logical problems:
1) How did the King a mortal (albeit possessing some ability of magic) have such a fearful hold over an undead creature?
2) Why did the King (a former dragon rider) have such a huge army? How could he have afforded it? Did he have an heir?
3) With that shade of his, why did the king not know where the hideout was of the Waguns (or whatever the people were called)? They were in a mountain. Surely the king would have found out, especially as he easily found out where a boy was.
4) Why did the king not destroy the last dragon egg when he had it in his possession instead of obsessing about its loss?
So the logistical plot questions were distracting. Another factor which did not leave me with a sense of being satisfied was the feel of the movie.
They tried to create a new world, using the existing one. Fair enough. They found mountainous locales. But it did not feel different and I did not feel connected. There is a huge gap between this and Lord of the Rings. The latter used some sweeping scenery shots, but did not get hung up on them. I felt there may have been too many for Eragon (especially since they were basically the same thing). There was no point for showing the space for it created a distance between me (the audience member) and the characters and story.
The costuming was not particularly special either. The bad guys were a left-over from Braveheart mixed with orcs. And with all the big to do about the Kings army, their armor was hardly shown and was obviously ineffective as they were slaughtered easily by a ragtag band of desperate fugitives.
The lines (though I don't know if they were all from the book) were a bit dry and used some cliches, which surprised me.
It was supposed to he a heroic epic which inspires. But I felt no connection between any of the characters except Eragon, the dragon and Jeremy Iron's character. Even the kid of the traitor mentioned seemed arbitrarily thrown in, though he might have had a more intense role in the book.
I am glad I watched the movie, though, despite all of my criticism. It did help me see what I could, and perhaps should, do with my teen protagonist in my young adult novel that will hopefully come out next year.
Fantasy movies are hard to pull off well these days. Lord of the Rings raised the bar very high. It seems that the only truly new world created in flicks recently has been Avatar (which could have been a wonderful setting for a fantasy movie if there were no humans or higher technology involved (similar logistic questions plague me with that movie, too). I had high hopes for movies like Dungeons and Dragons when it came out, as it could have been great in theory, but it was simply a heaping bowl of Mac and Cheese. I would love to see an excellent treatment of the Dragon Lance series done in movies. I would need to produce it and or direct it to ensure that it is made well so the audience will feel with the characters as I did throughout the book series.
I hope that future fantasy movies can engage and grip the audience more than Eragon does. That is the point of stories: to make one think, feel, and emote.
Click here to learn more about the movie.
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