It was just a great feel-good movie where the bad guys really get their due (and John Malkovich plays the evil king, which he acts so well).
I have not read the book, but according to Wikipedia things progress differently towards the end than in the movie (so what's new?), because there are actually two more books in this trilogy, of which this is the first. Nonetheless, the story line is simple and plausible for the movie version. I'm probably the oldest guy to like Avril Lavigne's music (her early stuff), but heard of this movie thru her song "Keep Holding On", which, unfortunately plays at the end during the credits. The special effects, created by LORD OF THE RINGS' Digital Magic and STAR WARS' Industrial Light and Magic, more than live up to the precedent set by those films, while the dragon is film's true star.Įdward Speleers, John Malkovich, Jeremy IronsĪ fun fantasy, even for adults, and Sci-Fi nuts The film was shot mostly in Hungary, whose breathtaking landscape combines to great effect with excellent cinematography. All of this will strike the seasoned fantasy viewer as familiar territory, but the formula is given life by veterans Malkovitch and Irons, as well as the young Speelers.
Jeremy Irons steals the show as the wise and mysterious old man who becomes Eragon's mentor, guiding him through the tasks of saving a princess (Sienna Guillory) battling an evil sorcerer (Robert Carlyle, TRAINSPOTTING), and fending off hordes of the hideous Urgals. Eragon befriends the charming dragon cub, Saphira (voiced with aplomb by Rachel Weisz), and becomes her rider, designating him as the principal warrior in the fight against evil. He now rules over a land from which dragons have all but disappeared, until humble farm boy Eragon (newcomer Edward Speelers) happens upon a mysterious blue object that turns out to be a dragon egg. John Malkovitch camps it up as the evil King Galbatorix, a former guardian of peace who long ago went over to the dark side. A classic story of a quest driven by destiny and set in a land where elves, magicians, and humans live side by side, the battle between good and evil, innocence and cynicism, is taken up once again. Based on the first novel in Christopher Paolini's popular INHERITANCE trilogy, ERAGON is a fantastical adventure in a vein similar to that of the LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy and THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA.