Eragon

Fox Home Entertainment brings 'Eragon' to Blu-ray day-and-date with the standard-def release. As such, it's a fresh master, and this 1080p/MPEG-2 encode can be impressive to look at. The transfer does have some problems, but overall the presentation is clear, detailed and colorful.

The plusses include a pristine source, featuring rich blacks and contrast with plenty of pop. Colors are bold and vibrant, and free of chroma noise. The film is often dark (especially all the nighttime sequences that are dominated by deep blues), but a properly calibrated monitor reveals fine details even in the shadows, which gives the transfer a pleasing sense of depth. Major compression artifacts are also not a problem, as I noticed no obvious macroblocking or posterization.

However, the film's CGI can be chintzy at times. These moments have a softer quality, and occasionally it's visually jarring with the rest of the film. I was also disappointed by what looked like some digital processing to remove grain, which further softens even non-effects shots. Edge enhancement is slight, but there were moments of jaggies -- usually on long shots with very hard lines. Such drawbacks are not so severe as to ruin this otherwise very strong transfer, but they do stop me from placing 'Eragon' among the top tier of Blu-ray presentations that I've seen.

As good as the video transfer is on 'Eragon,' the audio is even better. Fox serves up another DTS HD Lossless Master Audio 5.1 surround track, and it's a winner. Unfortunately I have continue to lament the fact that current Blu-ray hardware has yet to offer full DTS HD decoding, leaving me to enjoy only the "core" 1.5mpbs DTS track contained within, but this mix is impressive enough that I can only imagine how much more exciting it will sound in full high-resolution.

As you might expect, 'Eragon' excels with action. The film's sound design heavily favors these sequences, which can deliver a near-perfect illusion of total immersion. Dragon wings flap about, the monsters roar, and lots of things whoosh all around, producing an effect that is almost always one hundred percent convincing. Tonal clarity and realism to the rear effects is excellent, and channel pans are smoothly transparent.

The rest of the mix is a bit more boring. Dialogue scenes usually have a good amount of sustained ambiance, but it's slightly muted and probably the only weak aspect of this presentation for me. Dynamics are excellent, though, with massive low bass at times, and clean fidelity to the mid- and high-range. Volume balance is also pleasing, with even low-spoken dialogue clear and intelligible. Top quality stuff here.

Fox really went bare-bones for the next-gen release of 'Eragon.' Despite issuing a fully-loaded two-disc standard DVD edition, the Blu-ray is almost completely devoid of extras. Whatever!

The only real extra is almost hidden from view -- in facdt, I didn't even know it was on the disc as Fox doesn't list it on the back of the box. Director Stephen Fangmeier offers a solo audio commentary, which is largely technical. As a former commercial director, this is not a surprise. Fangmeier fills us in on how the most complex shots were executed, and largely from an effects standpoint. The changes from book to film are also gingerly touched upon, though there is little passion here. Quite frankly, I'm not shocked the film feels like a project-for-hire, made by someone trying to break into the ranks of feature film directors. It's an OK track on its own, but like the movie itself, rather pedestrian.

The only other extras are a colleciton of measly high-definition trailers, with spots for 'Eragon' plus 'Fantastic Four,' 'Ice Age 2,' 'The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen,' 'X-Men: The Last Stand' and 'Night at the Museum.' Woo-hoo!

As a movie, 'Eragon' just wasn't a success for me. It felt like a cheesy Hallmark Hall of Fame fantasy movie, only with better special effects. Perhaps if the film had not been so obviously geared (and dumbed down) for the tween set, it might have worked better. Alas, this Blu-ray release is also something of a letdown. The video and audio are really quite good, but Fox has inexplicably dropped all of the extras from the standard-def release aside from a single commentary. As far as I'm concerned, this is no way to launch a new format. I'm even knocking this one down an extra half-star just because of the insult factor in charging a list price of $39.95 for such a bare-bones release. Even fans of the film would be well advised to leave 'Eragon' as a rental until the real feature-packed Blu-ray version comes along.