Eragon DVD > Reviews > One massive cliché

Author's product rating:   

Did you enjoy it?	Indifferent to it
Story	Very ordinary
Characters / Performances	Good
Special Effects	Outstanding
How does it compare to similar films?	Unmemorable

Advantages:	Good animation and action
Disadvantages:	Predictable, average, disappointing

Recommend to potential buyers:

no

Full review

It’s hard to describe this film in just one sentence, but I think I’ve got it: one massive cliché.
There’s a good guy who’s the unwilling ‘chosen one’, and evil guy trying to control the world, evil guy’s servant, an army of strange creatures only made for killing, an old man who guides the good guy, a woman who doesn’t seem to do very much, and an untrustworthy guy that comes in mid-way and saves the good guy. And before you say, ‘Isn’t that Lord of the Rings’, no, it’s not. There’s a dragon in it. And the dragon makes all the difference.
What this plot does mean, however, is that there are ample opportunities to throw in a couple of clichés. Actually, more than a couple. I lost count at fifty. My personal favourites of are, is ‘It’s your fate to be a dragon-rider’ and ‘You’re the only one who can do it.’
There’s something about the over-dramatic use of the words ‘destiny’, ‘fate’ and ‘chosen’ that really annoys me. They’re just so damn cheesy.
They also don’t scrimp on the panning shots of them riding over the hills of – you guessed it – New Zealand. And of course, where would any adventure film like this be without the infamous hero voice. Oh, and how could I forget, the bad make up.
Nothing actually seems to happen; he finds an egg, the egg hatches, dragon grows up, he turns out to be a dragon rider, he kills a the evil guy’s servant, he’s a hero. They manage to stretch that into 104 minutes.
Anyone who’s read the book will tell you that they cut out a lot of the story, but I haven’t read it, so I don’t care as much.
The animation was pretty good, and the actors could act, which is always a plus.
Overall, I would not buy this on DVD, but it was a fun day out to the dinema and might be a good one to rent. It was an average film, which was nothing special but could have been much worse.
3/10
The action was average, but it’s a well-used plot and had too many clichés.