Eragon
Rated: PG
This film is why you don’t adapt novels where the author was only 15 at the time of the book’s release. 15-year-olds tend to lack scope. They just haven’t had the time to digest enough material to synthesize something fresh. Instead, they just steal and write fan-fiction but change the names and locations. 
Eragon is Star Wars if it took place in Middle-Earth. You have Luke Skywalker (read: Eragon) as a boy who discovers not only the same hair-stylist as Luke but that he can use the force (read: Dragon Magic) and then finds a Jedi (read: Dragon-rider) named Obi-Wan Kenobi (read: Brom) who will teach him the ways of the dragons so that he can join the rebellion and defeat the evil empire, thus avenging his slain uncle. Along the way you’ll see other familiar Star Wars characters. Leia, Han, and Vader are all here but in far less interesting forms. One could argue that Star Wars also steals from Kurosawa’s The Hidden Fortress and mythic archetypes but there’s no denying that Lucas was able to synthesize his wider knowledge into something magical and unique. Eragon might as well be Dragonslayer 2 and if you don’t remember Dragonslayer 1, don’t worry because neither does anyone else. But the film’s secret hope is that with its PG-rating, it will get kids too young to see the parallels. Unfortunately, parents will be less fortunate and as they grind through a film with atrocious pacing (director Stefen Fangmeier has no idea how to raise tension and expectations), they’ll try to let their minds escape to a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. Their minds might occasionally snap back into place as they notice the quality costume design or Rachel Weisz’ solid voice acting for the dragon Sephira, but their brains will have gone back to white noise by the time the Darth Vader clone is spouting “You have failed me for the last time,” to one of his orcs. I haven’t read the book but I took along a friend who had and judging from her reaction, fans of the novel will be disappointed in the anemic adaptation and so only those with a clean slate and no concept of better works will enjoy this film; basically the film will probably only work as a weekend diversion for the hard-to-impress 12-and-under set. Words by
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