Wonderful tactile technical brilliance, yet isn't holding up that well

Rating: 7/10 (4 December 2014)

I feel like Avatar and Gravity make extremely interesting companion pieces in juxtaposition. Both receiving a lot of hype massive hype ahead of release but essentially suffering from the same pitfalls, amazing resounding bark, very little bite.
I must say though I did find myself more gripped by the vast scope of Avatar, what James Cameron has on offer here is are tactile and strangely relatable visual experiences. That coupled with the incredible sound design and James Horner's pleasantly inspired score makes Avatar something that actually offers a sense of grounded escapism. Much has been said about the narrative, it's the age old archetype myth, entirely worn ground and it does make sense I feel but only to a certain level. However, I felt it propelled the movie to impress more and more on a technical level. The dialogue isn't very well crafted and massively clunky in places. Once the third act kicks in you are rather gripped by the precision of the cuts and the orchestration of this big epic action sequence, it rattles on to a fittingly breezy conclusion.
I would be remiss however not to point out that this was Cameron's first feature in thirteen years after the monstrously successful Titanic, was this the best he could do? It's seemingly also taking him six years to follow it up. Is he really such a maestro that it takes him eons to make decent event films, perhaps scaling it down would find him more suited. Watching this years after first seeing it during it's theatrical release you do begin to see how dated the visuals have become already, so soon. You don't really get that with physical practical effects movies. It's a shame too that this was the film that caused exhibitors to scrap film projectors in favour of big digital cinema systems, which in turn would force Hollywood to produce films to cater towards these packages.
In conclusion, good but more of a nefarious industrial presentation than a majestic work of cinema.
P.S. Unobtanium? Really?