For all its stars and special effects, this film about a teenager and his hatchling dragon never leaves the shallow end of the pool.
By: Bob Brown
And now for your typical boy-meets-girl except the girl happens to be a dragon. Stefen Fangmeier directed this interspecies love story, a sort of My Friend Flicka meets Lord of the Rings. Fangmeier had no prior directing experience; he’s a special effects guy (Saving Private Ryan, The Perfect Storm, Master and Commander). But that’s OK; the story is based on a novel by then 15-year-old Christopher Paolini, who had no prior writing experience. So it’s fitting that the young actor playing the title role, Edward Speleers, had no prior film experience.
The movie carries over some of the fresh naivete of a young writer. The characterizations are all simple. The emotions are all on the surface, just like the civilizations in which the characters live. Legends and fairy tales have some psychological depth. But Eragon never leaves the shallow end of the pool.
That’s both good and bad. Good, because you never get lost in arcane plot twists and murky motivations. Bad because it can get silly, or worse, boring. Imagine nodding off during a film’s most climactic battle scenes. Even Fangmeier with all his skills cannot make viewers care very much whether the good guys win or not.
The main relationship is between the teenage Eragon (Speleers) and his newfound pet, a hatchling dragon. Eragon has been poaching deer in the forests of King Galbatorix (John Malkovich) when he comes upon a strange bluish gem (which looks remarkably like an overgrown Nexium pill). Taking it home, he is unsuccessful in bartering it for meat at the butcher. But soon enough, the gem-egg hatches in his barn, and out pops a baby thing, which looks like a puppy with bat wings.
The bat-thing has a startling growth spurt and within a couple weeks it’s a full-grown dragon, named Saphira, who can read Eragon’s mind, and vice versa. Saphira’s seductive voice is that of Rachel Weisz (what a teenage boy’s fantasy, except she’s 30 feet tall and has scales). From then on, boy and dragon are inseparable.
But Eragon’s dilemma is what to do, knowing that the dragon’s attachment to him means he’s been chosen to be a dragon rider and to save his people from their virtual enslavement to Galbatorix. On the one hand, he’s scared to take up the challenge; on the other, he has an urge to rip the heart out of anyone who’s done wrong. Naturally, he gives in to his urges.
Eragon’s mentor is Brom (Jeremy Irons), a failed dragon rider who now urges the lad to take up the cause. Irons is the only actor who gives his character depth, just by his voice and his gestures. When Brom is not on the scene (virtually the entire second half of the film), there’s little to focus on. It’s surprising how much it matters to have real talent.
Other wasted talent includes Malkovich, who is smirking his way through a tiny role; Robert Carlyle, who plays the evil magician Durza; and Djimon Hounsou, who plays Ajihad, the rebel leader of cave dwellers, who are attacked by Galbatorix’s half-human warriors.
There’s a brief, chaste suggestion of a developing love (a mature human-to-human kind) between Eragon and Arya (Sienna Guillory), a maiden whom he saves from the clutches of Durza. At the end, boy and girl stare meaningfully at each other. A person might draw the disturbing conclusion that a sequel will follow.
The special effects are state of the art. Even the digitally generated Saphira has a personality, perhaps even more so than her co-stars. She represents every teenage boy’s fantasy: to pilot a flying flame-thrower through masses of your enemies and mow them down.
With all the gorgeous scenery coming from the Lord of the Rings films, you’d think New Zealand had a lock-hold on breathtaking craggy mountains and verdant valleys. This film’s exteriors were shot in Eastern Europe, notably Hungary, and Canada’s Pacific Northwest. And they are just as breathtaking, through the cinematography of Hugh Johnson (White Squall). A piece of trivia from Internet Movie Database: Johnson was set to direct photography on Ridley Scott’s Hot Zone before it was canceled.
The score by Patrick Doyle (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire) is inspiring in a fantasy-film sort of way, with lots of grand swooping themes played by the London Symphony Orchestra. It’s music to pilot a dragon by.
But for all the stars and all the special effects (armies of Hungarians were given steady employment in an economy near collapse), it’s too bad the film itself is as hollow as Middle Earth.
Rated PG for fantasy violence, intense battle sequences and some frightening images.