The Leader

There are a few things I dislike in a movie: excessively compressed timelines, lack of character development, lack of story… there are a lot of things I don’t like. And a lot of those things happen to be in Eragon, a movie inspired by a series of novels about the titular dragon rider, Eragon.

The movie takes place in the fictional country of Alagaësia (and yes, I had to look it up, and yes, it took me three or four tries to actually write it out myself); a realm not unlike Tolkien’s Middle-earth filled with elves, dwarves, dragons, wizards, orcs, wild men and the like, though we don’t even get to see 85% of the supporting cast, disappointingly enough. There is also an eeeevil wizard with a face for radio and John Malkovich as the equally, if not more so eeeevil king Galbatorix. It is amazing just how annoying it was that the villains were so eeeevil and the heroes were so good. 

At any rate, for thousands of years, dragon riders have protected the lands of Alagaësia, growing more and more arrogant and complacent as years went by. Eventually, Galbatorix- a dragon rider himself- gets the wild hair that if he kills off all of his comrades, he can take over the world and rule unquestioned with his lone dragon. He becomes king, the land is cast into chaos and tyranny and everyone is sad. In comes Eragon, a poor farm boy who comes across a dragon egg and becomes the first new dragon rider in decades.

This is where things get goofy.

Over the course of a week or so, not only does young Eragon (sounds suspiciously like “Aragorn,” doesn’t it?) become a fully proficient dragon rider, but a skilled magician as well. The only training he gets is the translation from English to Elvish on a few choice spells, and all of a sudden he can cast fire, protect himself from arrows and see what his dragon sees. His dragon, Saphira, is nicely rendered in CGI, is wonderfully lifelike and fairly interesting to look at. Her personality is a little aggravating, however. For one reason or another, they made her more snarky than absolutely necessary. 

Other characters who come up annoyingly short are Arya (Sienna Guillory), a princess of some other little city who had managed to somehow steal Saphira’s egg from Galbatorix and magically deliver it almost into Eragon’s lap. We don’t really know what her intentions are, other than she is an ally with the “rebellion” and has magical powers of her own. For Eragon’s part, we learn that his mother ran off, leaving him with his uncle a number of years ago- we have no reason for why she left, and there is no significant hint that she’ll ever return. In the end, nothing really happens; just like every other half-assed, all-for-looks movie out there, we’re treated to a treacley happy ending and a foreboding hint at a sequel. Barf.

This is just not the movie to see when you’re bored on a Saturday afternoon.

1.5 Of 5

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