Old Dan Reviews: Avatar

I refused to believe all the hype before seeing this 3-hour epic; James Cameron may have done a fantastic job on Titanic (and don't tell me otherwise), but going into a film with no expectations and no synopsis is something I've found to be an extremely refreshing experience, like Sprite for your eyes. (Ed note: Do NOT pour Sprite in your eyes, as it is far from refreshing.)

Ladies and gentlemen, my verdict for Avatar: Ohmuhguh.

See, I think James Cameron succeeded where Michael Bay failed me; whereas Bay deals more with the obnoxious, "pay-no-attention-to-the-thin-plot-behind-the-curtain" special effects, Cameron weaves a web of CGI so fine that you can't help but let your jaw drop at how far cinema has come. Sure, the plot is almost too familiar and formulaic for its own good, but the fact that an entire other WORLD, rich in wildlife and steeped in tradition among its indigenous people, was created solely for the purposes of this film just amazes me.

Come to think of it, I'm almost mad that Cameron & Co. distracted me well enough from the plot. I very much value my film storylines, and Avatar's was admittedly a cookie-cutter "save the environment" message, or as my sister put it, "Fern Gully-esque". But as I said, you can imagine why the movie as a whole took over six years to perfect; this is the only film which I can say has flawless SFX (including a tree-felling scene which makes Burning Man look like Smoldering Twig), and because I saw it in 3-D, I'm inclined to believe that sadly these effects won't be NEARLY as justified on the small screen.

I therefore encourage you, every last one of you readers (there's barely more than one of you anyways, I'd wager), to see Avatar in theatres and especially in that most glorious of dimensions, the third.

Dan

P.S. James Cameron also managed to convince a VERY captive audience that early Native American history can be allegorized using tall blue kitty people. So... there's that.