I saw Eragon yesterday. Owwie. Short review, not all that spoilery (IMO) under the cut.
Yes, the basic Star Wars plot parallels are obvious and unavoidable, and Edward Speleers looks rather like the unnatural offspring of Hayden Christenson and Mark Hamill. (Look forward to seeing plenty of scary Skycrawler photomanips!) The Pern ‘borrowing’ is quite a bit stronger than I expected, and bargain-basement LOTR is the order of the day for most of the production design. (The obligatory love interest will also look pretty familiar.) And I’m pretty sure they just lifted the lead henchman dude straight from one of the Sci-Fi Channel’s original movies.
The dragon effects are impressive, but there’s the familiar sheen of much-too-clean CGI all over it. She is pretty cute as a baby, though that wears off disturbingly fast. (Literally.)
In short, I can see why it got so many bad reviews. Now, I’ve seen enough MST3K to know it’s not the worst movie ever by far, but this is a film that should be watched with plenty of snark and alcoholic support.