The Future of Entertainment

Rating: 7/10 (21 December 2009)

Avatar represents the future of entertainment, both production, distribution, and exhibition. When the technology moves to video games it will represent interactivity as well.
As a technological and artistic movement it is rated 10/10 and is one of the most important films made in the last twenty years and is as revolutionary as Toy Story or Star Wars.
Judged only on the critical literary merits of film, including plot, story, narrative, characters, subject, genre, etc. it is rated 7/10.
Avatar is a very solid film and presents a message that although somewhat trite and heavy handed when presented to educated liberal minded people, is sadly needing to be brow beat again and again these days into the walnut sized dinosaur brains of the blunt skull denizens crawling around the barbaric red states.
In cinematic terms: The Green Movement meets Pocahontas, The New World, Dances with Wolves, and Starcraft.
One theme on the soundtrack is very reminiscent of Willow. James Horner's signature sound is audible from the very beginning.
JC's love of manga and mecha is very clear, right up to then grand finale which is a really intriguing reflection of the final battle in Aliens.
Sigourney Weaver ties a lot of the film together and her voice dominates every scene she is in.
My only complaint is that I think JC should have done even more with the back-story and especially the science, and for a three hour film, it could have been another hour or two and I wouldn't have cared at all. It was certainly epic and the only way to see it is IMAX 3D. If you saw this film in any other format or on any other screen it would be an immediate 6/10. Bigger is better.
Half the fun is the total immersion that is only accomplishable by IMAX 3D and JC's brilliant direction of every aspect of what you see, hear, and feel. As groundbreaking if not more groundbreaking than any other JC film to date. A milestone in entertainment and technology that absolutely cannot be missed.