Movie Review: Avatar

By Sky Holzinger in Arts and Culture on 12/19/09

I saw a matinee of Avatar 3-D opening day. The turn out was as expected, not too long of lines with seats left over. But I was ready for a good show and Avatar didn’t disappoint. Breathtaking artwork and mountains of imagination went into creating this film, just looking at it makes the trip worth it. As far as story goes, I was expecting what the critics said, Dances With Wolves in Space. But it was so much more and 100x cooler—so much fun to watch. The environmental conservation issue was not so much of the moral of the story as it was a foundational theme. It was like James Cameron asked himself what kind of issue or theme could contain a plot like this? Save the planet, of course. But it wasn’t Save the planet; it was Save Pandora, which you will find is a much different planet than earth.  I saw the environmental issue coming from a mile away so I didn’t feel beat over the head with it as you may, even though there are some juicy one-liners even Al Gore might be too shy to say. Some may say the story is formulaic, but formula works. Everybody can enjoy and understand the drama.

As usual the 3-D takes about 30 minutes to adjust to. But luckily the film is almost 3 hours long. The CG cinematography looks so real at points you can’t tell its fantasy. However, the one problem I have is the 3-D’s simulated depth of field draws your focus to one part of the image at a time, so even though the picture pops out and knocks your socks off, you can only see part of the screen at a time. It seems maybe traditional realistic camera moves and angles are not well suited to 3-D CG films. Some innovation is sure to come in future films of this young genre. I’m looking forward to the Blu-Ray version in somebody’s home theater.

Go see it and tell us what you think.
Parents of young children should exercise caution in bringing the children, Avatar is rated PG-13 for warfare, intense battle sequences, some smoking, sensuality, partial CG tribal nudity, and language

Here’s the Trailer:
http://www.apple.com/trailers/fox/avatar/

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