by MALCOLM FRASER

The young adult fantasy genre continues to tread familiar ground with Eragon, based on the bestselling novel by youthful author Christopher Paolini.

The titular character, played by 18-year-old newcomer Ed Speleers, is an orphaned farmboy who discovers an egg that hatches a dragon, which quickly grows big and starts psychically speaking to him in the voice of Rachel Weisz. Meanwhile, an evil king (John Malkovich) learns of this development and dispatches his equally malicious wizard (Robert Carlyle) to put dragon and owner out of commission (dragons evidently posing some kind of threat to the king’s grip on power). Speleers and his pet, aided by wise mentor Brom (Jeremy Irons), have to help a band of rebels defeat the king, and save a princess in distress (Sienna Guillory) while they’re at it.

The plot is a shameless pastiche of Lord of the Rings, Star Wars and any number of lesser hero-myth-fordummies tales. Speleers’ baby fat and dopey teenage gaze give him some inherent verisimilitude as the fresh-faced Eragon. Malkovich’s role is basically an extended cameo, an afternoon’s worth of hamming it up and collecting a cheque. Irons, no stranger to the genre (Dungeons and Dragons: The Movie, anyone?) puts a bit more effort into his performance, swordfighting with aplomb and delivering the cheesy dialogue with stoic grace.

The film is the directorial debut of one Stefen Fangmeier, previously known as a special effects man on such films as Saving Private Ryan, The Perfect Storm and Master and Commander. Considering his background, the effects are decidedly sub-Lord of the Rings, but there are some pretty nice dragon-flying scenes over the spectacular landscapes of Hungary and Slovakia (who knew they had such nice mountains there?). The numerous fight scenes are generally cut incoherently fast, but that seems to be the way such scenes are done these days.

All told, Eragon is decidedly a kid’s film: everything is laid out nice and simple, and the love story between Speleers and Guillory is so squeaky clean, they don’t exchange so much as a peck on the cheek. Although it’s probably too scary and violent for the littler tykes, there’s a chance it’ll make your nerdy 9–12-year-old cousin, niece or nephew’s day.

Eragon opens this Friday, Dec. 15

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