Eragon

Based on my only being able to plod through about five pages of the book upon which it was based, I expected this film to be pretty darn horrible. So, I had a bottle of wine on hand to aid the viewing experience. ...which helped greatly.
While the plot is absolutely derivative of Star Wars (Uncle Ben! Obi Wan!), Lord of the Rings, and the Earthsea Trilogy (read that, instead), it did feature some pretty decent special effects (and minimal cheesy ones), and a really cute baby dragon (which was conveniently allowed to bypass puberty in the flap of a wing). Nevertheless, the plot and characters did not stray from logic and character for the sake of drama as much as many blockbusters do and thus did not offend my sensibilities *nearly* as much as, say, Spiderman 3.
I don't know why everybody was so impressed by it being written by a seventeen year old, though. It *obviously* was written by a seventeen year old. There's not a shred of originality in town, and the plot pivots on the notion that dragons (the only ladies around) cannot live without their riders, but the riders can live on without their dragons. (Oh, to live the fantasy life a seventeen year old white boy!) If it were a book, I would have thrown "Eragon" the movie across the room like I did "Return of the King".
Still -- merci au vin -- it was not as bad as I reckoned it would be. Rated 6-.