Yesterday, I went with my friend Clent to the semi-local movie theatre and watched Eragon.
I thought it was a pretty good movie.
Now, I warn you beforehand that I have had absolutely no experience with the book. The closest I’ve gotten to reading it is looking at the cover. Thus, I don’t want any feedback to the tune of, “How could you like that piece of crap, the book was so much better?!?” After watching the movie, I may now pick it up at the library sometime.
Now, on to the review. And forgive me for not knowing the names.
First of all, I think the audio/visual effects from the movie were done quite well. In the visual side, I think the dragon was rendered quite well, and the Shade’s magic was also well-conceived. On the audio portion, the music was really good, and fit with the movie quite well. If you know me, you know that music is “my thing”, and a movie has to have good music or else it takes me out of the experience. I’m happy to say that this movie’s music didn’t do that.
The storyline seemed sort of bland, the usual fantasy “you’re the chose one, now you’re destined to save the world” type of story. I’m not saying it was bad, but it seemed like a variant of the millions of other similar story lines out there in the fantasy genre.
Finally, the one major thing that wasn’t well-done in my opinion was the acting. Some of it was superb. Eragon, the old dragon-rinding guy, and the Shade-man were extremely good choices for the characters, in my opinion. However, some of the characters just seemed to be “over-acted”, expecially the dragon’s voice. It seemed that the voice actor tried too hard to make the voice “dragon-like”, and it just didn’t come off as a good job in acting. Another character that I didn’t like was the King. I got the impression that this guy was supposed to be a dark, foreboding evil emperor, but all I got was this seemingly weak guy. Sure, I suppose that the physical appearance of the guy was good, but his voice was not “right”.
All-in-all, it was a good movie, and if you’re a fan of the fantasy genre, I would definitely recommend it.
Rating: B+