Eragon (2006)

  This was another book series that did well in print but couldn't make the mark in theaters.  The screenplay was clearly written with the intent to follow through with the next two books but the movie tanked so those ideas were scrapped.  It leaves the movie, not terribly strong to begin with, looking even weaker without the support of its next chapters.

Eragon (Ed Speleers), a young farmboy, finds a mysterious blue stone in the forest while hunting.  It turns out to be an egg which hatches baby dragon Sephira (voiced by Rachel Weisz).  Long ago, there were many dragons and their riders but the current king, Galbatorix (John Malkovich), pitted them against each other until they all died out and any surviving resistance was forced into the mountains.  He is not pleased to hear that a new dragon and rider have emerged and sends his sorcerer (Robert Carlyle) to kill the boy.  Eragon, however, finds a protector and guide in Brom (Jeremy Irons), a secretive man desperate to get boy and dragon to the mountains to be a rallying point for the Vartan resistance fighters and their allies. 

It is always amazing to me that a movie with a cast so good could wind up looking and feeling so generic.  Essentially, there's nothing wrong with the movie, but there's nothing particularly right about it either.  It just feels rehashed from every other tween adventure movie you've ever seen.  I'm sure everyone involved felt good about it, nothing seemed phoned in from that regard.  It had to all have fallen apart with the editing.  Maybe the books were supposed to fill in the gaps, because otherwise it seems very half-assed.

The story doesn't have a natural progression at all and, at least personally, I had a hard time remembering that I should care about what happens to the main boy.  Joss Stone is shoved in there for no apparent reason which you would think would be because she made a deal to do part of the soundtrack but no, Avril Lavigne does the closing credits song.  I think there's supposed to be a love story brewing between Eragon and Sienna Guillory's character but all I could think was that it was a shame she was too old for him.  None of the pieces seemed to fit right.  I really wish they had spend more time on the King and the Sorcerer since they were by far the most interesting people but John Malkovich had barely three lines the entire film.

For young children, say twelve and below, maybe this could be the new Willow but let's all do our part for the next generation and just show your kids the real Willow.