Dec. 21st, 2006

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...it was fairly plain to see that Eragon has flopped.

Orange Wednesday, quarter to seven in the evening, and there were all of about thirty of us in the auditorium. Oh yes, that was botched, and to be fair, as Emma told me what had been cut and changed in order to make a film out of a fifteen year old's misty-eyed fanfic, I can see why. They left out more than they left in, and what was there left you with that niggling guilty pleasure you gain from finishing a David Eddings novel - you just couldn't help being slightly pleased that this group of superlative heroes had made it through not particularly big challenges while never being in any real danger, and vanquished the overly evil and ugly bad guy without particularly having to try that hard.

However, if Eddings is high fantasy 101, this was pre-school.

It was obvious that the experienced cast list had got together in the absence of the debutees, decided that this was a bigger turkey than the D&D movie, the only characters that had even two dimensions were the leading couple, and they were going to have a laugh, get paid and go home. Jeremy Irons effortlessly controls every scene he is in (I swear I saw light bending round him at one point); Robert Carlyle is having about as much fun as I do when I play Mindstalker, with the hissing, the nails and the dragon surfing; John Malkovich didn't even bother to bring a character - he just plays himself and gets the bad guy well and truly over; Rachel Weisz picks and chooses between LotR and Chicken Run for her vocal inflexion, and successfully creates mystery by making you wonder which style she'll choose next, and Alun Armstrong actually manages to forge himself a second dimension, but is so short-lived he doesn't get a chance to show it off.

The leading couple are as wooden as Arnold Schwarzenegger chewing on a pine forest while standing next to a furniture shop, holding a degree from an Ivy league university and watching the Minnesota Timber Wolves while wearing a pair of Oakleys. In a wooden box.

The dragon is rendered beautifully, and the fight scenes actually look quite good - where they involve dragons or multi-person CGI. Where they involve extras, or even the leading couple, it looks like monday morning at the Gathering.

It sucked - so badly, it was great. If the second one ever does get made, I'll go and see it, for the same reason that the D&D movie gets watched more than most of my DVDs. It's fun, you get to see good actors in knock-down roles knocking the leading cast down, and it doesn't require a single moment of engaging your brain.

You also get to make LARP calls to it. Or is that just me that does that...

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Doug Millington-Smith

June 2017

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