By Ryan Parsons | Image property of 20th Century Fox.
Eragon
Now that Eragon
has had its big premiere (that Fox didn't invite us to) in London this past week, it is about time some of the first reviews for the film have appeared online.
How do they look? Well, as expected, they are mixed.
Early Reviews: Eragon
Two of the first reviews have appeared online for Eragon and they don't agree with one another. The negative review just didn't like the film while the positive report calls the film an 'alternative to Harry Potter.'
UrbanCinefile (positive)
Eragon ... that's Dragon with an E (instead of a D), or Era Gone, without the E. Both are wordplays that perhaps give a clue to the workings of the 15 year old author's mind. Christopher Paolini's rich and engaging work makes for great escapist cinema, especially for his own (young adult) age group. The dead hand of cynicism that chokes the imaginations and aspirations of most grown ups needs sometimes to be pried open by dragons, magic and noble destinies.
Performances are all top notch and the production design is spectacular, while the effects are seamless; the Dragonian work is fluid and helps create the fantasy world into which audiences are drawn.
CinemaBlend (2 Out of 5 Stars)
When Peter Jackson finally found someone with enough courage to give him money to make Tolkien’s trilogy into movies, he essentially hoisted the entire fantasy film genre bandwagon up, slapped four wheels on it, attached a team of Clydesdales and sent it down the highway at a hundred miles per hour. Ever since then everyone seems to be trying to jump on and ride that fantasy gravy train. Eragon is the latest attempt to hop on board, but it falls off with a thud in the first fifteen minutes of its mediocre life.
With time running out (both for the characters and the movie), all parties find themselves gearing up for some serious combat. As the audience you’re expected to be very concerned for the good guys, but you’ve been offered very little time to actually get to know anyone well enough to care. The heroes in the story are painfully underdeveloped and you don’t even meet the people they’re fighting to defend until the last possible second. It’s a horrific mess, an underwhelming ending to a poorly paced, overwrought movie.
Ouch! We should expect new reviews for Eragon to come in by the day now. Check out the full reviews for the film by clicking the bold links above.
Eragon opens to theatres on December 15th.
For the posters, production images, trailers, featurette, more movie info
and a full synopsis, go to the Eragon
Movie Page.
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