Ripley Loves Aliens, News at 11.

Rating: 3/10 (15 January 2010)

I hesitated, almost a full month, before seeing Avatar, a movie that apparently the world saw first. And when I saw world, I mean everyone, even people who have never see a movie, or even have the technology or places to go to see movies, saw it. I delayed my viewing as it was not a movie I was interested in seeing in the first place and the trailer made me snicker at the tall, skinny Smurf people.
But, I broke down and saw it, as I knew I was going to see it anyways and the small screen, or even a 60" would probably not do the large scale/action flick justice. Even further, I needed to see it in IMAX-3-D just to get the whole effect. Was I disappointed? Yes and no.
The special effects were amazing as was the cinematography. That was breathtaking. But the FX and scenery was only good whenthe blue people (or the Na'vi) weren't on the screen. Yes, I realize they're on practically the whole time you enjoy the rest of the CGI-world of Pandora, and I think the technology has thoroughly advanced through the years, but I just didn't buy it. I just didn't think they're there just yet. I almost laughed each time I saw them, but I never truly believed them to be anything but computer generated images. Everything else, aside from one of the dog-like creatures looked absolutely fabulous.
Unfortunately, looks can be deceiving. For example, as stunning as the 90% of the graphics were, in addition to the flights, the story looked as old and stale as most of the moments in human history it mimicked. I guess it was no secret the plot is without any teeth or any bit of originality, so stating it's a VERY A-B-C movie is just irrelevant. My guess is they (or just King Cameron) knew this, he's not stupid, and just said let's just throw in as many tricks/CGI/gadgets as they could possibly think of as distractions to deter from the central plot. It is very well known to people I associate with, that story comes first, always. I could be thrown a million things (even in 3-D) but that doesn't stop me from looking deeper for anything resembling not only originality, but heart.
Was the movie bad? No, I wouldn't go that far, but the race to cover up the lack-of-story with a billion FX kinda got old and made me look at the time more than once. Not only was I kinda bored with the attempts to impress me, but I was still waiting for the basic "C" elements of the A-B-C plot-formula (which, mercifully, finally arrived.) The basic storyline (a Dances with Wolves with the Titanic theme – dang, I got really frustrated with hearing Titanic all throughout this film, because Titanic was 12x better a movie) involves a last minute death of a man who was supposed to inhabit a Na'vi body in the long-distant future in order to infiltrate an alien species on another planet. His mission was to bring back information or (ha-ha, like I believed this) negotiate a "relocation" of the Na'vi so that Earthmen can harvest a rare substance in order to reboot Planet Earth after humans did a fine job of destroying it.
Well, thank goodness, the dead spy had a twin brother, but unfortunately, he's also paralyzed from the waist down. That doesn't really matter when your mind is transferred to a 12' Na'vi body. I'm spending way too much time on this 15-minute-plot, so I'll fast forward (and it's no shocker when it's all spoiled in the previews, anyways.) He joins scientists, gets separated and meets up with a Na'vi (or make that naïve) woman, Naytiri (Saldana,) who spiritually think he's the chosen one.
She trains him while he remains loyal to a very bad man (or high ranking military cliché who works for someone so incredibly cartoonish – Parker (Ribisi) – that I had to laugh at every unbelievable moment he was on screen.) But lo! He starts to see life in the blue, becomes one of the blue and its: Red, White and Blue vs. the other Blue.
The handicapped character-turned-spy, Jake (Worthington, or, again, I should say Worthless,) is so brain-dead that whenever Naytiri hits him in the forehead and calls him a child, I wanted to join her, but instead just punch him. Yes, I get the fact they wanted to show a transformation, but this extremely-dumb-as-a-box-of-rocks was so hard to watch, it should've been played by Keanu Reeves who might have given him more depth as a surfer-dude.
Would I recommend it? For special effects and fantastic scenery/scope, alone and the inevitable "Ewoks" finale made up for a lot of the movie's downfalls. Obviously, the general movie public (or in this case the entire Earth) likes familiarity. I, on the other hand, like to be amazed by screenplays that took more than a few hours to construct.
Either way, I would recommend, if you would ever see it, you need to see it on the big screen. I did, and I am thankful, now that I did and saw little to no depth, I can safely save money on foreseeable future Avatar sequels.