Movie Review – Avatar
I will do my best to keep this as spoiler free as possible, and at the very least avoid spoiling anything that wasn’t already spoiled a bit by the trailers for the movie. This is a bit of a rant about the movie Avatar and as such may want to be avoided by people that haven’t seen it. I have seen the movie, so the following is based on my own experience, and not on other people’s reviews. Which brings me to my first complaint.
Other people seem to love the idea of hating things for no reason. There are an almost unending supply of “reviews” out there that simply pan the movie without details, and countless more that offer an opinion about the movie simply to join the masses when they haven’t seen it. If you are going to pan the movie, offer some real convincing reasons about why you didn’t care for it. If you are going to offer an opinion prior to having actually seen it you need to simply shut the hell up. You don’t deserve an opinion. That would be like the judges on Iron Chef deciding who wins in the episode they are judging by watching a previous episode.
Beyond that, I will clarify that I chose to not see the 3D version of the movie. It was a decision made with my friends before we went involving concepts of not getting sick during the movie. Thus, I offer no opinion of the 3D version at all. It may be awesome, it may be nauseating, I’m not the guy that can tell you.
Even in its non-3D form, the visuals in the movie were simply stunning. I jokingly offer them a 14 on a 10 point scale. In plain English, they were beautiful and captivating. Everything from the vast scale of the Navi themselves and the trees to the wonderful effects of the bioluminescence of everything on the moon of Pandora at night to the military machinery and explosives was interesting to look at and held my attention superbly.
Most reviews proclaim loudly that Avatar has limited characters, weak plot, and presents a basically hallow experience. I can’t help but to disagree across the board. I will grant you that the story is a tad cliche’ as a whole, but when was the last time you could say otherwise about really any Hollywood Blockbuster movie? It’s about the ride for me. Exciting action, a little bit of love story, some fun explosions and a whole lot of prettiness to take in while experiencing something that can’t be experienced in person. Isn’t that what a movie is?
There are also parts of the story that some would describe as slow. I personally actually liked those parts the best. The main human character and the main Navi character learning from one another, or I guess the human doing most of the learning in that arrangement. Learning the culture, language, and skills of an entirely alien race was exceedingly interesting for me and was easily my favorite parts of the movie. I’m quite glad it was happening during a lot of the movie. I actually found myself about as saddened as the main character when he was pulled back to the human world.
A sure sign of a very good movie for me is one that I find myself thinking about all night after seeing it. I was wishing I could return to the places it showed me and it left me wanting to see it again. Overall, I give the movie a 9 out of 10. It was neither the best movie I’ve ever seen nor a merely mediocre one. I highly recommend everyone goes to see it, and I will own it on Blu-Ray once it comes out as well.