Metacritic: 38 out of 100 | User Rating: 3.3 out of 10
Rotten Tomatoes: 16% out of 100 | 43% out of 100
Box Office | Domestic: $75 Million | Global: $175 Million | Totaling: $249 Million | Budget: $100 Million
This movie had some promise as a solid fantasy entry to the genre. A sort of Dungeons and Dragons concept that would nicely fill the void and replace the horrible D&D films that came before it. The book itself was decent. Not necessarily because of the old adage that the books are usually better than the films, because that is almost always true in (virtually) every book that is adapted to screen. But because the book was written by a teenager.
However, the film was plagued with extremely forceful concepts, drawing its inspiration from a variety of sources. Because a teenager wrote it, you can recognize a variety of tonal and archetypal inspirations that weren’t just inspirations, if not blatant copies of other works – from the previously alluded Dungeons and Dragons to Final Fantasy to Lord of the Rings. Eragon was to be the first of a trilogy and it has never gained a sequel. It poorly used a few of its principal actors, among them Jeremy Irons, John Malcovich and Robert Carlyle, not to mention it went straight to the chosen one concept that was a focal point in the Harry Potter universe and used this concept horrifically, mirroring a Lucious Malfoy and Voldemort archetypal characters but with role reversals.
While this isn’t the most direct attempt to take on the Harry Potter franchise, it tried to fill a void in between the Potter films and it didn’t really fill that spot well. It didn’t flop at the box office but it was roughly $100 million short of what a studio needs to be commercially viable to continue with sequels. While that markup on production costs is usually 2.5, this film did roughly 1.5 over its budget. Not all studios follow that to the letter but in this film’s case, which definitely bombed critically, it would only see this one entry into its franchise.
Personal Ranking: ★★ (Passable)
Originally published October 28, 2014. Updated April 15, 2018.
