I haven't read the book. I started, but then I realised it remineded me too much of Terry Brooks, style-wise, and decided to leave it until I have nothing better to read. With that I mind, I went to see the Eragon flic not expecting much. I heard it was a rip-off, I just didn't know of what. Until...

Well, in the beginning, the chief evil henchman chases a princess who is fleeing with something important for the defeat of the evil emp... King. There's a blonde teenager who who recieves the important thing and is destined to defeat the evil emp... King. Whose parent (mother, in this case) is mysteriously missing. Who lives with his uncle. An uncle who gets killed by the bad guys. There's also an elderly tutor figure with a plot-related failure in his past, who in turn gets slain by the chief evil henchman. There's a rescue of the afore-mentioned princess from the evil fortress, which is followed by the evil army pursuing the heroes (minus the elderly tutor, who gets done in during the rescue) to the reb... Freedom fighters' stronghold. And, of course, at the end, a battle in which the evil army is defeated.

With all this, I expected Durza (the chief evil henchman) to say "Eragon, I am your mother!" But, alas, Durza got killed before uttering the words. But then again, that part isn't supposed to happen until the second film, and there are still bad guys left. Oh, did I mention there are three parts of the story?

As for the cast... If you thought Mark Hamill was bad, wait till you've seen Ed Speleers. If he's the best they could find among 180k candidates... And what's the thing with Jeremy Irons? Is any fantasy flic he's in doomed to suck?