The movie opens with some aerial shots of clouds and mountains, which are not at all reminiscent of Lord of the Rings in any way, shape or form. But before we can fully register this, we're instantly assaulted by the worst and most terrifying beast ever encountered in a fantasy movie: the dreaded, unstoppable expository voiceover! This time, though, instead of being a 1940s newsreader, our voiceover comes courtesy of a very bored Jeremy Irons.

"There was a time," he begins, "when the fierce and beautiful land of Alagaësia was ruled by men astride mighty dragons." More mountains. And I'm still not thinking of LotR. Nope. Not at all.

You know, I've always wanted to go holidaying in New Zealand.

"To protect and serve was their mission," Jeremy goes on, "and for thousands of years the people prospered." Yes, the people must have been very happy and peaceful if they needed men partnered with enormous dragons to look after them. There's no way that much power in the hands of the ruling class would have turned them into terrifying tyrants. Because people who become very, very powerful never become corrupt. (This is a fantasy world, remember?)

"But," Jeremy continues, as the music turns sour, "the riders grew arrogant and began to fight amongst themselves for power." Boy, I sure didn't see that coming. But look, if that's all they're going to do, why is everyone so keen to get them back later on? Meh.

Anyway, one of them—a guy called Galbatorix—"sensed their weakness", "betrayed them", and in "a single bloody battle, believed he had killed them all". Which makes him the ultimate evil, right? I mean, it's not like fighting amongst themselves counts as "betrayal", anyway. If he came out on top, that just means he was the strongest.

Yep, they're doing a bang-up job of keeping the peace there.

Now comes an aerial battle between a group of dragons, from the POV of someone (presumably Galbatorix) sitting on the back of one. It's actually quite neat—big dragons flying everywhere, breathing fire, at night, with a village or something burning beneath them. Then again, the end of the first D&D movie was like that, too, so your mileage might come up a lot shorter.

Look, I've heard of overcompensation, but this is just ridiculous.

So the other riders lost out and were killed, and Galbatorix made himself King, and oh gods, now we get to see the man himself. Basically, he's John Malkovich looking rather bemused, and wearing your standard Evil Fantasy Tyrant outfit, complete with press-on nails (no really—black press-on nails) and a fur mantle. Yep, that's really got me trembling in my boots.

"Um, can I go now?"

There's more fire, and peasants fighting against armoured soldiers, and Jeremy tells us that Galbatorix "crushed all rebellion." Because if they'd rebelled against the old riders, they wouldn't have been brutally crushed. No, the old order was good and sweet and would have just given them tea and biscuits.

Oh, and apparently a group of "freedom fighters" known as "the Varden" were included in the people who got crushed. Hey, you know what another word for "freedom fighter" is? Yeah, that's right—terrorist. But since the King is evil, that automatically makes them the epitome of goodness and justice.

And then we get our first glimpse of the King's generic henchmen. Basically, they're big fat bald guys with facepaint. In the source novel, they were supposedly a kind of beast-men, with horns and a guttural language, who were leery of going out in sunlight. They also had an elite form that was much bigger and stronger. Yeah, I know what you're thinking: they're just orcs with horns, right? Well, not quite. Actually, they're much closer to Robert Jordan's Trollocs, which in turn were basically orc ripoffs. So, our prodigy ripped off a ripoff. Ye gads and things on toast.

In the movie, though, they just cast a bunch of Hungarian body-builders, and left off the horns and such. Which makes them far less obvious orc rip-offs, but I just wish they'd left out the name, as well. This lackey race is called—no joke—the "Urgals". No, really. They're honestly called that. A nineteen-year-old kid came up with this, you say? Not a chance!

And I think I'll mention again just how bored Jeremy Irons sounds here. He pronounces all the dopey made-up names very carefully and deliberately, and it could not be more obvious that he's not particularly familiar with any of them. It's even more obvious that he really doesn't give a shit about this narration, and just wants his paycheck so he can go home. Compare this to the wild, near-psychotic scenery chewing he put into the D&D movie. If that doesn't convince you, allow me to refer to an interview he gave during production, in which he freely admitted that he was not a fan of the book (he openly said "it is not well-written"), and pretty much showed that he didn't think much of his role in the movie, either. Which becomes even sadder when you later see that he's the only actor in the entire thing who really seems to be trying.

Next we see some out-of-shape extras in "imperial armor", which quite honestly looks like plastic, in the act of "brutally" slaughtering a lot of other extras in really, really weird outfits. We'll encounter these people later, so I'll save the descriptions for then. For now, all I need to note is that there's one black guy among them who gets wounded. He's played by Djimon Hounsou (nnnoooooo!!), and he'll be back later. Poor sod.

"Those that survived fled to the mountains," says Jeremy, and we're shown a really, really, really obvious matte painting of one. This is a Matte Shot! with an exclamation point. There, apparently, the Rebel Alliance—sorry, I mean the Varden decides to stay and hope for a "miracle" that will help them fight back against the King. Gosh, I wonder if that will happen in this movie.

"Our headquarters lie in yonder matte painting!"

Cut back to John Malkovich, still dressed like Ming the Merciless, with flames flickering in front of him for "dramatic" effect. And I have to say he looks more apprehensive than evil here. It's almost like he's wondering if he ought to just make a break for it before they make him say his first line of dialogue. Sorry, pal, but you signed up for this (she says, recapping a movie that makes her die inside).

Cut to the hooves of galloping horses, and the music turns "exciting". Three people, including a cute chick on a white horse, are riding at speed through a forest. If you can believe it, the voiceover is still going on, and it continues while the opening credits are superimposed over the action.

"Our story begins one night as Arya, an ally of the Varden, rides for her life, carrying a stone stolen from the King himself."

Oh, holy shit. Jeremy, did you really need to tell us this? Look, we can see the girl fleeing for her life. She's cute, so she's obviously not one of the bad guys. For the love of gods, this is a movie. You're meant to be showing us stuff, not telling it to us in voiceover! What is this, the cut produced for the visually impaired? Either way, let us wave goodbye to our old friends called "subtlety" and "suspense". Trust me, they won't be coming back.

Cut to Galbatorix's throne room, where we hear the first actual line of dialogue. And at least the filmmakers were honest with us, and decided to come right out and demonstrate the level of truly idiotic dialogue we'll endure for the rest of the movie.

"I suffer without my stone," the King intones, looking as if he'd rather be catching up on the Imperial accounts around now. "Do not prolong my suffering." And all sorts of really obvious jokes come to mind, but I'm not going to bother.

This command is directed at—excuse me while I wince—Robert Carlyle as Darth V- sorry, I mean Durza the Shade. He's kitted out in pale, corpselike makeup, and a truly heinous crimson wig. I can't really rip on the filmmakers here, because the very first paragraph in the book has an infodump which describes the Shade's "crimson hair and maroon eyes." And I think I should mention that Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time contains an evil creature called a Fade. There's no need to spit at this point: I'll do it for you.

Durza bows low. He then leaves to begin the most half-hearted evil rampage ever.

"Um, Sire, your dragon's lit the carpet on fire again..."

Now we're outside again, and would you believe there's a dramatic full moon? The title of the movie appears on-screen, but the opening credits still aren't over. In his Red Zone Cuba recap, Albert joked that if he were involved with a movie that bad, his credit would flash by as quickly as a reality show disclaimer. I wish Eragon's crew had as much sense.

Cut to an interior somewhere—it's dimly lit by nothing but a candle, so you can't really see anything—and here at last is our, uh, hero, Eragon, busy putting on his boots. He leaves his home, pausing to glance down at a sleeping old guy (his uncle Garrow, who doesn't get a name in the movie). He smiles at him. Aww, what a little sweetheart. Then he unhooks a bow from the wall. Um, newsflash, guys: you don't keep your bow strung when it's not in use. It makes it wear out faster. That probably sounds petty, but I've always believed that just because you're writing/filming fantasy doesn't mean you can just sacrifice realism when it suits you. It's lazy.

And then, unbelievably, the voiceover keeps going. And not only that, but Jeremy is telling us the most obvious stuff imaginable. Namely—and this is word for word, people—"Miles away, a young boy ventures out to go hunting. His life, and Alagaësia, will never be the same again."

Holy fuck on a stick. Sorry, but I couldn't think of anything else to say. Do I really need to point out why this is idiotic beyond all reason? Besides the sheer obviousness, it sounds like a bad Chuck Norris Fact joke ("Chuck Norris went out hunting. There were no survivors"), except it's glorifying some dumbass teenager, instead of a guy with at least some reputation for badassery.

So, to recap, it's exactly three minutes into the movie, and it's already apparent that the guys who made this film had not the slightest clue what they were doing (or, more likely, didn't care). Believe it or not, the movie will flip us off even more as we progress. Actually, I get the feeling the VO was edited in later, on the orders of some studio head, considering most of the information in it will be recapped later on in dialogue.

So we leave this extremely riveting hunting trip for the moment, and return to watching Arya and her redshirt companions, currently being stalked by Durza. And even though it's the dead of night, there's a very bright light shining through the trees behind them. And no, it's not moonlight, because it's far too bright, and entirely the wrong colour. And it's certainly not flickering like firelight would. So it must be magical light, since there's obviously no such thing as electrical lighting in Fantasy Land.

"Hurry! That giant kleig is gaining on us!"

Alas, their very careful attention to staying hidden is all in vain—probably because they've decided to follow a very wide and obvious road through the forest. Durza, apparently aware that the people he's hunting are complete morons, has set up an ambush with a team of Urgals (snicker) where he's standing in the middle of the road, in plain view. And yet, the fugitives just ride straight toward him at full tilt anyway, without showing any sign of having seen him.

Durza gives a signal, and one of the Urgals fires an arrow. This takes out one of the redshirts (for some reason, I accidentally typed "redshits" there. Can't think why). The second redshirt is quickly taken down too. Mind you, he's taken out by a single shot, in the dark, while he's on a galloping horse. Wow, these Urgals are good.

And if you're thinking the redshirt guys are pretty pathetic for an all-powerful freedom fighting force (both the book and its sequel go on and on about this point, until your eyeballs start to bleed), well, you'd be right. In fact, in the book they were killed just as easily. Actually, most of the really idiotic things in the movie come straight from the book.

And this scene is yet another reminder of Star Wars. Remember how the stormtroopers kicked off A New Hope by totally slaughtering the rebels on Leia's cruiser, but then pretty much sucked ass for the rest of the trilogy? Same story with the Urgals; They get one scene of competence, so the movie can pretend they're actually dangerous, then it's straight to cannon fodder for the good guys.

This leaves just Arya, who pulls her horse up short, looking confused. Yep, babe, you walked right into an obvious trap. Who would have thought this would happen, huh?

Her horse rears in panic, and an Urgal jumps out of nowhere and knocks her off. She goes tumbling down a slope like a bag of laundry. (In the book, the horse was killed, and she somehow managed to vault gracefully out of the saddle while the horse was falling. No, really.)

Suddenly, we cut back to our hero, Eragon, who's creeping through the woods in almost pitch-blackness. And no, I have no idea why he's hunting in the middle of the night. At least in the book he was doing it at dawn, when he could presumably see a damn thing.

Yep, he should have no problem hitting something.

Now comes an extremely unthrilling sequence of him sneaking around the forest, until he spots a deer just standing there doing nothing. He selects an arrow, and then it's back to Arya, who's running for dear life with an extremely silly-looking sword in her hand. Suddenly, the forest in front of her bursts into flame. Yep, Durza went and started a forest fire. He's truly evil!

Arya falters and turns around, but fire is already springing up behind her, as well. Durza is standing on a slope a short way away, waving a hand and supposedly controlling the fire. He's muttering some stupid-sounding "magic" words while doing this, and if you think they sound stupid, try reading the book and see how they look written down. Ever try to pronounce the word "grjalza"?

"Grjalz-achoo!"

Arya, meanwhile, is just running around like a big wimp (even though we later find out she has magical powers, too). Durza just strolls through the fire to confront her, and his clothes are completely untouched. Wow! He's got magic and an outfit made from asbestos! Is there anything he can't do?

Only you can prevent forest fires!

They have an extremely non-exciting confrontation, in which Durza demands "the stone". He adds that if she hands it over, he'll let her live. Oh my gods. Is it wrong that I burst out laughing when he said that? What an awful, awful cliché of a line. Carlyle's warm and genuine smile as he says this doesn't help, either.

Arya, of course, spurns his offer (I bet that shocked all of you), and pulls out the "stone". It's about the size of a melon, is shaped like a Panadol capsule, and is the colour of a blue jellybean. No, really. I don't think I've ever seen a faker-looking prop in my life.

Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi! You're my only hope!

She speaks a string of "magical" words, and the stone glows and then vanishes in a big flash of light. For some reason, Durza looks surprised. Look, dude, she's got magic. What did you expect her to do? And why the hell didn't you just kill her instead of wasting time making bogus deals? That seals it: every character we've met so far is an idiot. [Note from the future: And the characters still to arrive won't deviate too far from this standard.]