The Eragon movie (may contain spoilers)

[Boromir88]

Fantasy movies seem to be coming out more with the release of the Lord of the Ring's movie. We had it followed by the Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (they are not beginning production on Prince Caspian). Now we have Christopher Paolini's books being made into movies...with Eragon.

Paolini has stepped out several times and said Tolkien and Star Wars were two big influences on him, and anyone familiar with them can see this. I would like to discuss for those who have seen the movie Eragon (though try to keep spoilers down to a minimum).

What similarities did you find with the Lord of the Rings? What reminded you of LOTR? What was your general thoughts about the movie? Or perhaps if you have yet to see it what are you expecting from the movie?

I have not read Christopher Paolini's books, as quite frankly I have heard that you can tell a young teenager wrote it. If the movie script was in any way similar to Paolini's writing...then I can certainly see that argument. So, on to what I felt about Eragon (I don't think there will be any spoilers below, but there may be).

I didn't think it was an awful movie, but it wasn't great either. It's nothing compared to the Lord of the Rings movies...which I kind of expected going in. As teh budget wasn't there for the film to make it into a huge epic picture like the Lord of the Rings. And also Tolkien is in a class that I don't think Paolini will ever reach. He is a talented kid for writing some popular books at his young age, but he has no clue what each word carries and means to the extent that Tolkien did. I wasn't expecting the movie to be like LOTR, so that's probably why I was fairly happy with it.

It was a decent movie, nothing really spectacular about it. I will get it when it comes out to buy and get on sale for a cheap price (if that is any further clue about how I felt about it). The acting was pretty solid. The kid who does play Eragon in his first role, I think did a good job. Jeremy Irons is one quality actor that I would love to see in The Hobbit movie that's coming out. He's got that gruffness for a good mentor role and I think would be comparable to Alec Guinness (original Obi-wan) and Ian Mckellan (Gandalf) if the script was better. He knows what he's doing, he makes some excellent pauses and knows how to deliver his lines. I expected nothing less from Irons.

I think the biggest weakness of the movie was the script, just some awful dialogue. I mean 'Into the sky. To win or die!' is just absolutely horrible...and I felt these cheesy and awful script throughout the movie. It was probably worse than George Lucas' scripts. One more comment the evil lord Galbortorix (played by John Malkovich)...his name sounds like some sort of cleaner...'Get out tough carpet stains with Galbortorix; it'll eat up dirt and grime like nothing else.' And not the name of an evil dark lord...say Sauron for instance.

There are some weaknesses to the movie...if you go in expecting something like the Lord of the Rings there's no doubt you will leave dissappointed. But, it is an entertaining movie, with some solid acting. So, if you go in open minded, you probably will leave the theatres happy.

I'm sure you all have read enough of what this whacky guy felt about the movies...now it's your turn.