Avatar Reviews

[Link removed - login to see] frgdasasasasasasasasasasasasasasasasasasasasasasasasasasasasasasasasasasasasasasasasasasasasasasasasasasasasasasasasasas

I was waiting for this day for the longest time. I was a kid back in 2009 when this movie released. So never got to watch it back then. But now when it rereleased I booked the first day show to a IMAX show and oh boy was I blown away! This is nothing short of a masterpiece! It's beyond belief how a film like this could've been made. Every scene, every shot is perfection. You are transferred to a different world and become so engrossed in the film. Never have I attended a movie where at the end of it people got up from their seats and started clapping! Last time this happened was after Infinity War. That movie too was a damn brilliant one. I'm from India and this is legit rare, where people go crazy, so crazy after any English film. This was one experience that I will never forget. I'm definitely going for it again next weekend cuz just once was not enough.

Every human on the planet needs to experience this magnificent work of art!

After watching Titanic, I wanted to watch this since it overtook Titanic as the highest grossing movie worldwide (and is only the second highest grossing adjusted for inflation), it was intense but also really well done, well animated, nicely acted, great story, a great movie and definitely worth a look

Many people have criticized Avatar for the fact that it is merely a retelling of the old white guilt standard: a man (a white man) goes into a native population, falls in love with a native girl, and adopts aspects of their lifestyle, eventually this draws creates conflict with his people. It's the same story that was in Dances with Wolves, Pocahantus, Last Samurai, and even Fern Gully. The only difference: blue indians. The reason I don't have a problem with this is that all throughout human existence, there have been some stories which we retell over and over again: the star wars movies are just mythology in space, There will be blood is Citizen Kane with oil, and every single Tarrantino movie is just a giant composite. That doesn't make it any less good. And anyway, Avatar has cool effects.

Visually mindblowing and irresistibly exciting, James Cameron has created a masterpiece that is a revolution to the film industry. The story may not be new, but carries a strong moral message and has an emotional love story in the background. It must be seen in 3D for the visual splendour to be at its prime effectiveness. I sincerely hope that its sequels do not ruin such a fabulous movie, one which (despite 'The Hurt Locker's brilliance) should have won the Oscar for 'Best Picture'.

Forgive me, I'm going to jump from professional to fan boy for a while here. I haven't had the jitters after a film the way I've had for Avatar in quite sometime. James Cameron's Avatar is the most entertaining and enthralling cinematic experiences of my life. It is incredible, simply put. What Cameron has done here is the most passionate film project put out since Steven Spielberg released Schindler's List. His attention to detail and his zeal for pushing the envelope is so admirable to any filmmaker or actor who will ever do another film from this point on.

Avatar is the story of Jake Sully, a paraplegic marine, who replaces his brother on a secret mission to infiltrate the Na' vi, the colony of beings that sit on the planet of Pandora, where there is a precious ore, that sells at a ridiculous amount. When Jake learns the ways of the Na' vi, his feelings and learnings will put him and the people he trusts in dangerous jeopardy.

The performances here, in the sense of reacting, becoming, and understanding what Cameron has written are astounding. Not to be confused with a sensational bravura performance from some of the centuries best such as Marion Brando, Tom Hanks, or Diane Keaton; these actors along with the director inhabit these visual transformations with special effects as if they are have lived these beings all their lives. This is all based on character movements and reactions. Sam Worthington, as Jake Sully, is an actor who's on his way to becoming a star. Though he has problems with his Aussie accent often enough in the film, he gets the job done. Zoe Saldana, who plays Neytiri, a Na' vi huntress, is thrilling and electrifying. Stephen Lang, as the rock hard Colonel Miles, takes on a villainous turn to a new level in science fiction. He offers actual emotion and emotes evil to the audience and gains our hatred easily. Sigourney Weaver as the beautiful Dr. Grace, is sufficient enough to have on screen again teamed with Cameron. She lives inside her role with effortless ease, but suffers from some of the typical James Cameron cheesy lines.

Narratively the film works perfectly on the cinematic level. The first forty minutes or so require patience and hope as it is the weakest part of the film and offers some dreariness, but when the second act takes off, it's sky high with no limits for James Cameron. Avatar delivers the best action sequences put on film of all time. That is the boldest statement I have ever made in all my years of criticism. I sat on this for two days before charging it out, but I mean it. It is the best visual experience of my life, period.

Other than those visuals, the film pops with all the other technical aspects thrown into one. Art Direction is killer as the two worlds blend in perfectly for an acceptable time. The Film Editing is the crowning achievement of the film as it also offers the perfect blend of the two worlds, enticing the viewer and shifting us around. Mauro Fiore is the threat for a Cinematography Oscar this year. It was if the viewer sat down in a chair, put on glasses, and was literally placed on Pandora, spaceships, and floating mountains. The viewer can feel so engulfed by the imagery, you feel like you can smell the leaves from the trees. Avatar is utterly hypnotizing. James Horner's score is some of the best work done in his career. It offers a variable of devastation that moves the viewer to near tears. It goes back to his work on Titanic, where the musical instruments lifted the material immensely. The entire sound team is also locked and loaded for Oscar recognition as the feeling of animals, machines, and arrows buzzing by your head leave you imprisoned in Cameron's exquisite film.

James Cameron has come back home ladies and gentlemen Cameron is back, bigger, badder, and mature in his crowning work of his career. Terminator 2: Judgment Day and Titanic do not even compare anymore. This is the film that can blend the fans of those two films together and lock Cameron into your heart. He's a definite spoiler for a directing bid for the Academy Awards. You have admire the raw, natural talent the man has. How could you ever conceive such an experience and put that much effort and work into it and have it pay off? The box office success will surely keep him in the minds of voters for various critics' awards. His screenplay, leaps and bounds better than 1997's Best Picture Winner, is primed, developed and ripe for the taking. Though, you do acquire the tacky and atypical dialogue you expect from a science fiction director of this caliber, you can appreciate the effort and the honesty of it all. James Cameron is everything Michael Bay wishes he was, to put it bluntly.

Avatar will bring also great actors putting their best foot forward such as Giovanni Ribisi, who is as underrated as they come. Michelle Rodriguez who exudes sexy like any woman starring in a sci-fi epic. Joel Moore, showing his range outside of his comedic work in Dodgeball: An Underdog Story. And the classy veteran actors, CCH Pounder and Wes Studi, who just simply don't work enough.

Avatar is one of the best films of the year. The most exciting, thrilling, and superb work you'll feast your eyes on in any theater this century. Cinema, forever, will remember the benchmark that James Cameron placed not only for himself, but for any man, daring to change the game, the way Cameron did. Avatar is a movie experience to be remembered, and please experience in a movie theater first.

In any crisis situation, it's important to remember one key phrase:

**To The Choppah!**

But, they forgot to say it.

And, you know, "I'm a Bloo-Rai!", just doesn't have that same....

And, you know, I think it's a shame that they turned Sigourney Weaver into a frumpy doctor-lady (we musn't contaminate the biological specimens...), she can be way nicer and cooler than that.

And, yeah, the animist dudes were kinda cool, the corpo-nazis/evil-military-suck-your-brains guys kinda sucked...I mean, yeah, they did, but....

Even though the Marine dude made a cool unencumbered adventurer, capable of being empty enough to learn new things, and chill enough to just adapt, instead of being freakishly afraid of contaminating the mud by squishing through it a bit, *but*, I don't know....

What ever happened to: "To The Choppah!" Man, I don't even know what movie that came from....

And, you know, he's just too much of a Romo Lampkin ("my parents were killed for the money they had on them, which wasn't enough"), turned-Marine....I mean, Romo was a lawyer, though not an especially bookish one, but, all these I-am-just-a-poor-boy-and-my-parents-were-killed-and-so-this-will-not-be-a-comedy, thank-you-very-much, all those guys start to blend and blur together after a certain point.....

And, you know, at the end, the animists and their white friends were running-through-the-forest, the days of gloom are here, the artillery fire is all around us, so we must run-through-the-forest, HP Part 7 Part 2 style.....

After a certain point, I start to wonder if the guy they were running away from was....Michael Jackson!

And, either way, they should have remembered to bring the chopper.

(7/10)

With the game-changing, magnificent visual spectacle that is Avatar (* * * out of four), writer/director James Cameron can be crowned king of the virtual world.
But he still needs to hire a screenwriter. For all the grandeur and technical virtuosity of the mythical 3-D universe Cameron labored for years to perfect, his characters are one-dimensional, rarely saying anything unexpected.

But for much of the movie, that hardly matters. The scenes in Pandora — a planet with an Earth-like environment — are so breathtaking that the narrative seems almost beside the point.

EXPECTATIONS: 'Avatar' seeks a titanic take at the box office
JAMES CAMERON: Director pushes every boundary for his vision
TRAILER: Take a quick trip to Pandora
PREMIERE: Blue people on the red carpet
The first sight of this exotic paradise may rival the seminal scene in The Wizard of Oz, when the Technicolor munchkin world first comes into focus. It's a jaw-dropping introduction to the tropical world of blue-skinned, golden-eyed aliens. Their lush jungle home is vibrantly hued, with flora and fauna, fabulous winged creatures, flying spirits that look like wispy sea anemones and floating mountains.

Cameron seamlessly melds live action, computer-generated animation and 3-D technology. The motion-capture technique that dazzled in Lord of the Rings reaches a new level of proficiency, enabling more nuance in facial expressions.

But why diminish all this with clunky dialogue?

Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) is a former Marine, now in a wheelchair, recruited to Pandora. Humans are there at the behest of a powerful corporation mining a mineral that could solve the energy crisis on ravaged Earth.

Pandoran air is toxic to Earthlings. So scientists create a program in which human "drivers" are connected to avatars, bodies created in the lab that look like the natives of Pandora, called Na'vi, and can survive in the environment. Human DNA is mixed with Pandoran DNA, and these hybrid beings are sent on reconnaissance.

When Jake emerges in avatar form, he can not only walk but also run and leap, and his exuberance is infectious. Jake soon meets Neytiri (Zoe Saldana), one of the 10-foot-tall Na'vis, who saves him from rampaging creatures.

Cameron's films are noteworthy for strong female characters. Sigourney Weaver, in an evolution of her role as Ripley in 1979's Alien, plays the gruff scientist who runs the avatar program. She comes to respect Jake as he grows to admire the peaceful and spiritual Na'vi.

An epic battle to drive the Na'vi from their land tests Jake's allegiance. At nearly three hours, the movie grows sluggish, especially during the protracted battle scene.

Even so, Cameron has fashioned a breathtaking Eden. But his paradise is almost lost without characters and dialogue as imaginative as their setting. (Rated PG-13 for warfare, sensuality and language. Running time: 2 hours, 41 minutes. Opens at midnight Thursday in some theaters and Friday nationwide.)

I want to add that I knew this movie was going to be generic before I saw it but I got pushed into seeing it because it was a Plan B for my night out. The movie was great to look at but let's be honest, with $300,000,000 to make a CGI movie anyone could have made it look good. CGI is only going to get better too so in 5 years no one is going to give two shits about this movie. The 3D factor only made it worse I think. It didn't need to be in 3D and it didn't make me like it any better.

The bad things about this movie. 1) Boring plot that has been done a million times, even in reality. 2) Generic characters. I didn't really care about any of them and this makes me not care about the movie. 3) Boring music. Generic Hollywood score and that song at the end credits made me laugh...wtf was that?!

Ok, I could go on and on about how I've seen every single part of this movie in some other movie so I'll just end this rant now. A movie to see once but why would I need to see it again? No replay value at all!