Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue

Rating: 6/10 (5 January 2010)

Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), a paraplegic, former marine becomes a last minute replacement for his dead twin brother on a mission to the inhabited faraway moon known as Pandora. His mission is to, through a remote controlled, genetically grown body known as an "Avatar", explore this new world and find a MacGuffin called "unobtainium", a rare and valuable material in the future, kind of like gold or oil in todays world. Of course after having been wheelchair bound for several years he really loves waking up in a new body with legs that work and allows him to run for the first time in years. However, all is not sunshine and lollipops on Pandora as we and Jake soon find out. The reason one would need an Avatar-body is because the air on Pandora is not friendly to earth lungs. Neither is most of the plant life, animal life or the ten foot tall, blue skinned, feline natives called Na'vi. One of the characters describe the place as being worse than hell. On his first mission, Jake gets separated from the group, gets lost and gets rescued by a female Na'vi called Neytiri(Zoe Saldana). She brings him to her tribe where he learns about the Na'vi, their customs, culture and their relationship to nature.
Now. Why do I in the title to my review compare this movie to a wedding dress? Maybe I want my review to stick out a little bit, because there is not much I can say about it that hasn't already been said. Kinda like the movie itself. The thing that is old and borrowed is the story. It's "Pocahontas, Ferngully and the last samurai- In Space!" with impressive CGI. The old "person comes to a new world, meets native from new world, is introduced to it's culture, falls in love with world and native and wants to stop his own world from taking over and exploiting new world"-thing. What's new is the the way that it's told. This is one of the few times where earth is invading a new planet instead of being invaded. The concept of an avatar: moving your mind to a body meant to be remote controlled is interesting and quite new (sure, "Surrogates"(2009) came out before this, but to my knowledge James Cameron came up with the idea before "Surrogates" was written). The blue thing: The Na'vis of course! (Heheh!)
The main appeal about this movie is the CGI and the 3D, since, like I said earlier, the story is something we've seen before. While that is not directly a bad thing, originality is always appreciated. At first I wasn't gonna watch this in 3D but I thought that since I've never done anything like this before I'll try it just this once... it was pretty cool. A movie shouldn't have to rely on cool technology though. This movie is basically about showing the latest in movie technology. The story is till good, just a little unoriginal. The CGI-motion-capture is not that new (I'm looking at you Robert Zemeckis!) but it is done very well. The movements and facial expressions of the Na'vis really made them seem alive, like Gollum in "Lord of the rings".
I'm writing this a few days after I saw the movie, so hindsight has affected my view of it slightly. So how did I feel when watching this shameless display of the latest achievements in cinematic entertainment technology? Did I like this movie? Was I entertained? Would I recommend it to others? Yes, yes and yes. Do you have to watch it in 3D? No. Sure, it's cool but not necessary.
I see you... reading this review!