avatar IN 3D!!!!!! with spoilers.

I did not expect to like Avatar based on previous reviews that I read, but out of pure curiosity I went and saw it anyway. It didn't seem right for me to complain about a movie I had only heard and read about. Most critics who haven't loved it, have complained about the simple plot. It's an obvious rip off of Dances With Wolves, Pocahontas, Fern Gully, etc. There were the obvious allusions to environmentalism and the war in Iraq. The words "terror on terror" and "preemptive strike" were used, and when the Colonel actually said "shock and awe" I hit my head. I expected those, but there was SO MUCH MORE!!! So I'll focus on the things that I noticed outside of what I had already read on Rottentomatoes.com.

Positive things: I thought the colonel fighting in the machine while Neytiri fought controlling an organic animal was fairly interesting. Michelle Rodriguez looked pretty hot flying. I also liked the fact that CCH Pounder was in it. I just like her from The Shield.

First of all, James Cameron really likes himself. He proved this by reusing his own material throughout avatar. It was like his own personal scrapbook of previous movies. He used his robots which humans control, much in the same way that was done in Aliens. The destroying and falling of the giant tree around 1:45 into the movie was much made in the style of Titanic. Jim knows how to make something fall, and he did it again. Sigourney Weaver got recycled. Our main fella Sully was played by Sam Worthington, who you may recognize from the latest James Cameron movie. I was most surprised, when it became night time in Pandora the glowing fauna was completely like the end of The Abyss. Now, I don't mind a recurring theme. I love Wes Anderson films, and he reuses actors like crazy. However, that's a style. Not just a mess. I'm going to need time to cleanse my pallet or I may never be able to enjoy the next Terminator movie.

I went into this movie wondering why people loved this incredibly trite movie. As soon as Sully, played by the mediocre Sam Worthington, got into his avatar I knew. Sully is paralyzed from the waist down. Once inside the avatar, he bypasses all of the scientist's exercises and stands up (completely knowing how to use his body, despite the fact that it's around 10 feet tall and has legs, which he hasn't used in years). He then runs out the door to the outside, where he just takes delight in using his feet. I turned to Allan and said "Oh, I get it! It's a children's movie!!" The other people using avatars have had years of training but he just MAGICALLY knows how to use the avatar immediately.

This movie could have been made better by explaining how the people who used the avatars muscles didn't atrophy to the point that they would not have been walk after months of lying down. It seemed pretty convenient that the day and night cycle on Pandora seemed to be similar to that of Earth. This was never addressed. They must just be running on a 24 hour cycle too. How convenient. The UNOBTAINIUM (no shit. that's the actual name of the material they are looking for) is really expensive, but we don't know why. At some point, late into the movie it is casually mentioned that humans have destroyed their own planet. We don't know what is going on there or how this UNOBTAINIUM would be able to help them, if at all. A little backstory might have helped, instead of the main character starting off by landing on Pandora. I'm glad the visual artists had such a great time recreating the scene from The Lion King, where Simba and Nala fall in love. All that was lacking was Elton John's "Can You Feel the Love Tonight?". I saw Giovanni Ribisi, who I LOVE,  play a bad guy for the first time and not effectively.

I also noticed that almost all of the Na'vi were played by African Americans or Native Americans. This was just another example of a movie where the white guy comes in and saves the black people, instead of them helping themselves. I found it offensive. This may not been quite as infuriating, if Cameron wasn't already trying to make an obvious political and social statement with this piece of shit.

The fight scenes were extremely predictable. Blows missed just at the perfect time and hits were always made at the exact moment they were meant to. Sam Worthington continually slipped out of his American accent. At some point Grace, the woman controlling an avatar, is fatally wounded, and the Na'vi ask the earth/god to put her spirit into her avatar permanently to save her. It doesn't. She dies. But this scene allows any asshole can figure out that Sully, who hates his crippled life, can and will end up in his Avatar permanently. The perfect ending. They just happen to have the capabilities to put him into this avatar. At least at the end of Titanic, Rose seeing Jack again could have been just her last thoughts, just something nice to leave us with, or the afterlife - if you really want to push it. Realistically even with all the disbelief in this movie this bothered me the most. Had all the humans left, I think Neytiri would have been left with a scrawny white boy in a chamber playing house in a big blue body. It would work fine unless, they ran out of human food to give him, the oxygen tank broke down, or his body disintegrated from his lack of movement. Is that the worst ending? We may not have forever, but lets take advantage of what we have now.

Talk about the "good" parts all you want, the negative overshadowed them by far, and made it so that these could not be appreciated. The Colonel's scars were perfectly placed, the bloody scenes were never messy, and even the destructive scenes looked carefully configured. As a person with an art background I do appreciate good visuals. Unfortunately a painfully poor and plagiarized story made this pointless. Really, I agree with my friend Brett who says he prefers the visually interesting to the visually stunning. I actually enjoyed looking at Clint Eastwood's expressions in Gran Torino more than any part of this. It was all just a little too perfect. I have heard compliments as to how "every thing was done perfectly down to each single leaf". That's true, but when I watched it I thought, wow all those leaves were made perfectly by someone, and I am watching something that isn't real". Btw, despite my cynicism I really like to get lost in movies, and forget that I'm watching something created.

I spent $9 and the only thing I got from this movie was a pair of 3D glasses. The photo below will now demonstrate both my anger and the one thing I have taken from the movie.

P.S. I don't think that 3D technology is impressive enough to be used in live action movies yet. The foreground, middle ground, and background were painfully visible, actually giving me more of a reminder that I was watching a movie. I could have just gone to a viewing without 3D, so I won't blame that on Avatar.



To wrap it up, if you like watching pretty pictures and don't give a shit about movies, please, go see this.
I just added $18 to the multi billion dollar profits, why don't you too?
Feel free to leave your comments. I love them.

Apparently the Vatican agrees.  "When a county that has a popemobile thinks your visuals are over the top, you probably need to rethink things?" - Brett Jackson.