Avatar

[emeraldstag]

Avatar

The most hyped movie that I can recall of in my lifetime. And when I hear things with people trying to compare it to their experiences watching Star Wars for the first time in the seventies, I get the automatic urge to go the other way and dismiss the film and build up a resentment against it before even watching it. I fought against this as much as I could as I didn't want to be a hypocrite and be like the people that slam the Star Wars prequel movies without watching it or giving it much of a chance. I debated about seeing it opening night or at a midnight premiere but since I wasn't as hyped up about Avatar I didn't and instead went Saturday morning and saw it in IMAX 3D. This would be the first completely 3D movie I've seen as the last was Superman Returns back in 2006 when they only had moments in 3D and you had the infamous, pull on, pull off glasses moments.

Overall it's stunning visually. Which is to be expected, something Cameron trends with this movie is perfecting previous techniques, where 10 years ago Lucas introduced the possibilities of realistically producing 100% digital environments for the actors to roam in, we see Avatar perfect the look and feel and truly create a magical planet in Pandora. Then we see the visual motion capture technology used by Zemeckis in films like Polar Express and the recently released A Christmas Carol taken to a whole new level in Avatar with the Na'vi people. Having an actress like Zoe Saldana only be seen through this digital skin and still come away impressed with her performance is an amazing leap in technology where you didn't feel held back by the limitations of expression, there were no noticeable limitations.

Zoe was amazing and I continue to love her performances in now 3 of my favorite movies (Pirates of the Carribean, Star Trek & now Avatar). Sam Worthington truly has that compassionate big actor stock in him, again making himself endearing to the audience like he did in Terminator 4: Salvation. Sigourney Weaver was awesome as the doctor and it was sad that they weren't able to keep her character alive to her avatar. The only true problems I had with the movie were the villains, Giovanni Ribisi's administrator character who was a little bastard for most of the film and then tries to pull off the kicked puppy look when the humans were being sent away, and the crazy colonel who was very unbelievable with some of the actions he performed in the movie (like his iron lungs that can hold his breathe for entirely way too long).

It's a long movie. You feel it, but not in a bad way, more in a looking at your watch to figure out where and how they were going to end the movie - as I wanted to do several times whether they would end it after the Big Tree destruction, or when Jake Sully starts to rally all the clans. It felt a little like Lord of the Rings: Return of the King in that there were several places they could have ended the movie (knowing that Cameron wants to do as many as a trilogy) but they didn't which was probably the best course.

Do I think this is a game-changing, never before seen blow your mind film? No. Sure there are some techniques used in creating Avatar that is new (like being able to direct a camera around in the virtual world like in the real world) but for the most part this is a movie that just does everything better than seen before and excels in that. I will gladly buy Avatar on DVD, I hope it does well financially (do I want it to break records? Not really) but I don't know if I want to see a sequel. I can't think of where they could take the story, I guess with them rebuilding their home, but I don't want a rehash of the "sky people" returning to seek revenge and try again for the mineral deposits on Pandora. This story works as a single film, but knowing Cameron's intentions, the fanboys slathering all over the film and the assumed success of Avatar, I think sequels are inevitable regardless of whether they're needed or not.