ERAGON [PG-13]
Never mind the obvious riding of Peter Jackson’s Lord Of The Rings coattails — this sword-and-sorcery tale is practically a remake of Star Wars, and a groan-worthy one at that. A simple farm boy named Eragon (dopey newcomer Ed Speleers) realizes that he and his dragon named Saphira (Rachel Weisz) are the only hope for a hidden rebellion against a dark king. Nearly as egregious as the ill-conceived Dungeons & Dragons movie, this first adaptation from author Christopher Paolini’s Inheritance trilogy is loaded with bad dialogue, contrived action, and performances both hammy and wooden by acting heavies Jeremy Irons, Robert Carlyle and John Malkovich. Heck, the very bored-looking Malkovich looks as if he is actually reading from cue cards at one point. It even seems like the cast was reading the script fresh on each day of shooting. A warning sign to viewers as to the poison within should have been the fact that studio Fox has been desperately shilling the video game based on the movie for the past couple of months, even running trailers for the thing in theaters. Perhaps they realized that the only people they could trick into seeing it during its crucial opening weekend were 15-year-old boys, but even a pornophilic, PlayStation-addled Mountain Dew junkie is still sharp enough to know when he is being played for a fool. –Robert Newton