Critic Reviews
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Gregory Kirschling, Entertainment Weekly
Give Eragon a few years: By then, it might be delightfully bad.
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Nigel Floyd, Time Out
A painful reminder of what fantasy cinema was like before the Lord of the Rings trilogy re-wrote the rules.
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Kerry Lengel, Arizona Republic
The title of Hollywood's latest fantasy epic is simply the word 'dragon' with one letter changed, and unfortunately, that's about the level of creativity you can expect from Eragon.
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Peter Howell, Toronto Star
...So heavily derivative of Star Wars and The Lord of the Rings it should be ritually torched by followers of Yoda and Frodo.
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Peter Hartlaub, San Francisco Chronicle
Eragon may not be a big Oscar contender, but in a movie season filled with blood diamonds, fascist soldiers and Idi Amin, it provides a much-needed afternoon of PG-rated family-friendly adventure.
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James Berardinelli, ReelViews
Why has 20th Century Fox released this embarrassment - whose quality would be dubious for a direct-to-video release - into theaters?
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Saxon Bullock, Film4
Kids too young for Lord Of The Rings may be distracted by this below average fantasy, but for everyone else this is derivative and silly.
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Heather Huntington, ReelzChannel.com
Are you a 14-year-old boy? A 33-year-old who has never had a date and lives in your mother's basement? Then this may be the movie for you.
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Cynthia Fuchs, Common Sense Media
Dragon fantasy falls flat, but kids won't care.
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Tricia Olszewski, Washington City Paper
Regardless of your feelings about the fantasy genre, there's one thing everyone can agree on: Elves should not be 5-foot-6.
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Karina Montgomery, Cinerina
As my companion dourly noted, "I just paid $30.00 to see Star Wars." (And yes, that's matinee pricing and all I had was a water.) But wow, great effects, seriously.
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James Plath, Movie Metropolis
So, how much do you penalize an entertaining film for being derivative?
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Christopher Smith, Bangor Daily News (Maine)
Tolkien lite.
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Emily S. Mendel, culturevulture.net
The viewer is not transported to the magical, complex and elaborate kingdom of Alagaësia of the book, but rather is merely observing action scene followed by action scene.
Read all 14 critic reviews
Featured Audience Ratings
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Not as bad as it could be. Yet they did cut a lot out of the book. a love or hate series i like. Not as good as LOTR but a decent fantasy story.
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"I've got a great idea for a new movie now hobbits and shit are in vogue!"
"Oh, yeah? What's it about?"
"Well there's this young farmboy see, and he lives with his uncle...let's call him Duke Styporker. He can be played by some… More
"I've got a great idea for a new movie now hobbits and shit are in vogue!"
"Oh, yeah? What's it about?"
"Well there's this young farmboy see, and he lives with his uncle...let's call him Duke Styporker. He can be played by some characterless pretty boy with an English accent, like that Hayden Christensen dude! EVERYBODY liked him...am I right or am I right?!"
"Okaaaay...."
"He finds out one day that he's the chosen one to hang out with this dragon who speaks to him!"
"You mean like Dragonheart?"
"No, no...nothing like that! That had that cool, charismatic Scottish guy voicing it. We'll just get a Satnav to do it and make her communicate through thought so we don't have to make its lips move...that oughtta save us a few bucks!"
"I see..."
"Then he can meet up with an ageing mentor who used to be like him, who teaches him how to fight and use magic powers. We could call it The Horce or something! But there's this bad ass Emper...er I mean King who wants him dead, so he calls in his right hand man who used to be a good guy like Obi Wan Kebabi (just thinking off the top of my head here!) but turned to the dark side!"
"How did you get in here?"
"This bad guy, called, um Garth Nader, captures a feisty princess who Duke has to rescue with the help of an enigmatic, morally ambiguous mercenary who keeps appearing to save his ass at the last minute!!"
"Let me guess. Flan Polo?"
"Now we're cooking! What a team!"
"You ARE shitting me, right...?"
"So they rescue the princess but his old mentor is killed by Garth...bet you never saw that one coming! So they all get together to help the rebels fight the imperial forces in a big battle in a Keep built into a mountain side!!"
"Exactly like The Two Towers you mean..."
"Erm...ever heard of it..."
"SECURITY!"
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I enjoy a good fantastical story but I had avoided this one due to the bad things I'd heard of it. However, I eventually thought I should still give it go and see for myself. Seriously though, I wish I'd listened to the naysayers now.
Young farmer Eragon (Ed Speleers) finds… More
I enjoy a good fantastical story but I had avoided this one due to the bad things I'd heard of it. However, I eventually thought I should still give it go and see for myself. Seriously though, I wish I'd listened to the naysayers now.
Young farmer Eragon (Ed Speleers) finds a dragon's egg, and teams up with the newborn dragon, Saphira (voiced by Rachel Weisz), a former Dragon Rider (Jeremy Irons) and a female Elf (Sienna Guillory) to tackle an evil king (John Malkovich) and his shady accomplice (Robert Carlyle).
Bad dialogue, bad acting, bad movie. If your going to release a fantasy film these days then make sure it has some mileage, as "The Lord of the Rings" has set a very high benchmark. This was also based on a series of books by Christopher Paolini but it's not even in the same league as some of the quality we've recently been spoiled with. Admittedly, I've never read the books, leaving me unsure as to how the adaptation should be but I do know this... the voice of the dragon was a bad move. It made no effort to even look like the dragon was communicating and just came across as cheap and insulting. Although some were impressed with the special effects, I didn't find them to be anything special. Speelers doesn't really cut it as the hero of the tale, lacking charisma and any form of acting ability and the rest of the cast seem perplexed. You get the impression from Irons and Malkovich that they know they've made a mistake with this one. The same goes for Carlyle but he still manages to deliver a decidedly nasty villian that's way above this nonsense. Normally a fantasy yarn has something to hold your interest - no matter how poor - but it just goes to show there are exceptions to that. This is one, and quite possibly the definitive to those exceptions.
The only positive that can be taken from this is that due to it's box-office and critical failure, we will probably be spared the adaptations to the rest of the series. A very bad film indeed and one that I'd rather rate with zero, but I'll through a half a star Robert Carlyle's way.
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This rating is coming from the guy who liked Dungeons and Dragons. I HATED this film. In a sentence, it brutally murdered the Eragon book with a wooden stake. The plot is completely different from the book, as ar the characters, the acting is horrible and the special affects are… More
This rating is coming from the guy who liked Dungeons and Dragons. I HATED this film. In a sentence, it brutally murdered the Eragon book with a wooden stake. The plot is completely different from the book, as ar the characters, the acting is horrible and the special affects are horrible. I'd rather have a kids tv series on Eragon then this.
Let's start of with the acting. Wait. What acting? Exactly. Jeremy Irons did a fantastic job, clearly showing a change from his role in DnD, but even he couldn't save this movie. Ed Speleers (You are not an inch of Eragon), Sienna Guillroy and Garrett Hedlend were particulary horrible. They were all overracting so badly, it makes the HSM cast look good. But hey, they had a bad script, so give them credit.
The special affects were horrible too. The dragon is less realistic than the 1997 Godzilla and so is the demon/dragon/cloud whatever the hell Durza rides thing at the end.
But the worst thing about this movie? It is absolutley ABSOLUTLEY NOTHING like the movie. It doesn't mention the dwarves, it doesn;t mention the Urgals and replaces the Dwarf Lord with the fact that Durza rides this random thing that nobody knows about. And another thing, why did they kill of the Ra'zac so quickly? Did they do it because they knew this movie would suck so badly that they wouldn;t make a sequel.
Overrall this movie did nothing right. But hey, we can give it credit for something! It showed us how NOT to make a good fantasy movie.
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Another failed franchise by Fox. Sloppy structure, bad acting, lackluster effects, weird acting, "Eragon" gives a headache to anyone who is unfamiliar with the source material. I don't even wanna give the books a go.
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What the hell was this crap
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The only part that I liked was the baby dragon (so cute!). Other than that, this was <b>boring</b>. They tried too hard but failed in every way.
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Eragon is a good but not great representation of a great story, but I really enjoyed this movie. It actually pulls off some heart while trying to fit a long story into a short film. It ia very corny, but I love it for trying really hard. I can't really complain but it was missing… More
Eragon is a good but not great representation of a great story, but I really enjoyed this movie. It actually pulls off some heart while trying to fit a long story into a short film. It ia very corny, but I love it for trying really hard. I can't really complain but it was missing many things!
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If there was originality in the book, it seems to have been lost here. If, for film, they needed to distill down to the major plot-points of the book, it essentially was "I am a farmboy who rides dragons. They are quite rare, you know. Oh, whats that, the realm needs… More
If there was originality in the book, it seems to have been lost here. If, for film, they needed to distill down to the major plot-points of the book, it essentially was "I am a farmboy who rides dragons. They are quite rare, you know. Oh, whats that, the realm needs saving?" If there was some uniqueness in the story, they probably cut it off as useless fat.
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Maybe its just that I have had my fill of Dragon Movies the past 2 years, I mean hey how many dragon movies with different lines can you write. Farm boy finds blue egg wham blue egg pops out a dragon, dragon and boy become best friends boy meets old hero and is trained by him to… More
Maybe its just that I have had my fill of Dragon Movies the past 2 years, I mean hey how many dragon movies with different lines can you write. Farm boy finds blue egg wham blue egg pops out a dragon, dragon and boy become best friends boy meets old hero and is trained by him to become hero and save the princess, there you have it in a Nutshell. 2 stars and I am being nice. So why is this dam movie in my collection, I guess because it was on sale at Wally?s World for $2.99, And I thought I wasted 18 dollars when it came out in the theater only to be reminded when I re-watched it on DVD. PASS. A Good Teen Movie I guess
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A farm boy, Luke Skywalker, sets out on a journey along with his mentor, Obi-Wan Kenobi to save Princess Leia, who is being held captive by the evil ruler of the galaxy, Darth Vader.
Oh shit! Wrong movie....Meh, close enough. Just sub in a Lord of the Rings setting, change the… More
A farm boy, Luke Skywalker, sets out on a journey along with his mentor, Obi-Wan Kenobi to save Princess Leia, who is being held captive by the evil ruler of the galaxy, Darth Vader.
Oh shit! Wrong movie....Meh, close enough. Just sub in a Lord of the Rings setting, change the character names, and you have the story of Eragon.
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<i>"You are stronger than you realize. Wiser than you know. What was once your life is now your legend."</i>
Industrial Light and Magic special-effects wizard Stefen Fangmeier makes the leap into the director's chair with this coming-of-age fantasy… More
<i>"You are stronger than you realize. Wiser than you know. What was once your life is now your legend."</i>
Industrial Light and Magic special-effects wizard Stefen Fangmeier makes the leap into the director's chair with this coming-of-age fantasy concerning a young boy whose discovery of a mysterious dragon egg leads him on a predestined journey to become a Dragon Rider and defend his peaceful world against an evil king. Based on the best-selling novel by Christopher Paolini, Eragon tells the tale of the titular character (Ed Speleers), a humble farm boy living in the land of Alagaësia, whose life is forever changed when he discovers that he has been chosen to fight the most powerful enemy his world has ever known. Jeremy Irons, John Malkovich, and Djimon Hounsou co-star in a film produced by Davis Entertainment and adapted from the novel by screenwriters Peter Buchman, Larry Konner, and Mark Rosenthal.
When I heard a film version of one of my favourite books was coming out, I couldn't wait and eagerly waited for it's release - only to be disappointed when it was. The acting wasn't very good apart from Rachel Weisz as Saphira, the dialogue was bad, and the story was terrible. They changed too much from the book in my opinion and their order of things was appalling. A friend of mine who is also a big fan of the novels told me of a review which is actually quite suitable. I can't remember exactly what it was, but it said something along the lines of: 'It was as if the people who made the films read the first 10 pages and then made a film out of it.' I really wish they had left Paolini's book as a book instead of making it into a film. It really felt as if they were desperately trying to fit it into an 1hr 30mins time frame, and if they had expanded it to a longer film with more accurate copying from the novel, plus a better cast, it would have been a great film. It's a shame it wasn't.
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Oh boy, another cookie cutter fantasy story. Fantasy really needs to explore real life drama events that normal movies base themselves on, instead of the typical 'save the world from the evil king' plot we've all seen a thousand times. I want a fantasy about a dwarf… More
Oh boy, another cookie cutter fantasy story. Fantasy really needs to explore real life drama events that normal movies base themselves on, instead of the typical 'save the world from the evil king' plot we've all seen a thousand times. I want a fantasy about a dwarf with cancer.
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good story and as an overall film.
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Can't wait for the rest of the series...
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I could not get past the first reel of this film. Maybe there were some really cool dragon scenes I missed out on, but this was TOO papercut in terms of acting/character development and I couldn't see a plot worth shitting on.
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The movie was good. I'm not a fan of magic, fantasy, or any of that - yet I liked this movie. So, that says alot for it.
The downfalls: It was to short, with very simple set up. It could of been more detailed, and been took a little more seriously. But, its still a fun classic… More
The movie was good. I'm not a fan of magic, fantasy, or any of that - yet I liked this movie. So, that says alot for it.
The downfalls: It was to short, with very simple set up. It could of been more detailed, and been took a little more seriously. But, its still a fun classic too add to a collection.
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This movie gets panned for being un-original, too nice and nowhere near as good as the book. Well I haven't read the book yet, and the movie isn't half bad.
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Unimaginitive and very very dull. The mythology is just scraped together from true epic franchises and rushed at an uncontrollable pace. Acting ranges from poor (Malkovich who just sits on a chair for the whole film) to acceptable (Irons just being himself). The film leaves itself… More
Unimaginitive and very very dull. The mythology is just scraped together from true epic franchises and rushed at an uncontrollable pace. Acting ranges from poor (Malkovich who just sits on a chair for the whole film) to acceptable (Irons just being himself). The film leaves itself open to a sequel that I can only prey doesn't happen. A black mark on the careers for all who took part, apart from maybe some of the CGI department who actually put in a bit of effort to render the Dragon.
Read all 20 featured audience ratings
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