Just got back from the experience. I must say this was my most eventful trip to the theater since seeing Revenge of the Sith during the midnight showing on opening night. The place was packed, and to my disdain my brothers decided to sit towards the front of the theater. We weren't close to the very front, but it still took me out of the experience; to make matters worse, I was sitting slightly to the right of the screen, and not in the middle.
But this discomfort was nothing in comparison to the constant babbling which came from the row behind me, which was filled with about four pre-teens of semi-distinguished mentally-challenged intelligence. Listening to them ooohhh and awww at the various movie previews made me want to kill myself; perhaps this is what Himuro is talking about when he describes his depression, or how Drinky feels when he reads some of my posts; if so I must apologize to him, for now I know what stupidity looks and sounds like
On the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles trailer:
"Oh my gosh, look at those! That looks amazing!"
"Wow, it's better looking than my Xbox!"
"Hahaha, I like the one with the red thing on his head"On Live Free or Die Hard:
"Uncle Joe take me to see that plz!"
"Is this Mission Impossible four?"
"Totally awesome! He threw the car into that plane*!"*It was a helicopter, not a plane. Idiots.
Now, about the movie:
The movie started out with the generic tired-but-true voice over telling the basic story; very few movies ruin these kinds of opening scenes, and Eragon is no different. For a few minutes I thought the movie would be pretty good.
Oh, how I was wrong.
Eragon is like the babelfish version of Star Wars. It might sound similar to Star Wars, but in the end it's all a bunch of jumbled up bullshit with the slight hint of 13 year old homeschooled douchebag-erry. It's like listening to a rap song and being appauled at how shamelessly the sample was stolen. "I expected someone...better". "You'll soon find out I'm full of revelations!".
No Star Wars detail goes untouched. Perhaps the first hint comes in the implied incest that hits you in the face 5 minutes into the movie. For a minute I thought I had walked into a screening of Brokeback Mountain as Eragon and his studly cousin wrestled on the floor, grabbed each other's asses, and giggled like Andy Dick with a cock up his ass.
Very quickly the meat (haha, a pun) of the story kicks in, and things get quite boring. Basically Eragon finds an egg, it hatches, and once it does the bad guy feels its presence - sort of like Sauron knowing when the ring was being used; note: all of this is done quickly due to some wizard editing and terrible pacing. I won't bore you with detailed story bits, but lets just say Eragon finds out only he can save the world, a hooded man teaches him magic, and he saves a bunch of black people.
Despite these flaws, this movie could have easily been quite average, if not slightly below average. The acting, for the most part, is not as terrible as I expected. The nancy boy who plays Eragon does his job good whenever he's not crying or trying to act dramatical. Jeremy Irons is pretty badass in the movie; it's pretty hard to fuck up him with a shitty script though. But on the other hand, there are some utterly atrocious preformances. John Malkovich pulls off the worst villian I've ever seen on film, and Djimon Hounsou (you know, the dark guy from Gladiator..Blood Diamonds...Amistad...etc) tries far too hard delivering the worst Irish accent of all time.
But perhaps the most disgusting thing about this film is the terrible set and costume design. If anything, it really makes me appreciate Lord of the Rings even more. There is no creativity in any of the designs. Many of the backgrounds clearly look like CGI, which looks terrible compared to the beauty of New Zealand (LOTR); utterly unacceptable for a fantasy movie by today's standards. I didn't see any nicely designed houses, or cool castles, or anything.
The costumes are horrible. I didn't know people wore denim jeans during the age of dragons; Christopher Paloni, you teach me something new every day! Yet easily the worst costumes are saved for the Vangard or whatever they're called, which all dress like rejects from King Aurther's table; you can see the golden glitter falling off their armor as they flail around. Their look totally clashes with everything else seen in the movie, and it's beyond laughable.
And LASTLY, the battle scenes in the movie are almost unwatchable. I liked Batman Begins, but I felt many of the fighting scenes were very poorly shot. Eragon takes the concept of shaky cam brawling to a new level. Everything happens so fast, yet so uninspired, that you're left feeling empty after even the largest battle scenes. I've never seen an action movie with action so...flat.
In the end Eragon will probably make a bunch of money because it caters to the semi distinguished mentally-challenged folk I mentioned earlier (reminds me of a certain videogame console...), all of whom cheered as the credits rolled. It's interesting at times due to some interesting plot twists, but the poor execution of nearly everything else makes the movie extremely forgettable. I fell asleep a couple times during the movie, which has NEVER happened to me before. Thank you Christopher Paloni for putting me to sleep; for once in your career you achieved something no one else has done before!
