Honestly One of My Favorite Movies of All Time

Rating: 10/10 (24 December 2009)

OK, so I made a first attempt at some sort of review of Avatar and failed miserably. I tried to make it sound to fancy, filled it with a bunch of crap, blah blah blah. Anyway, I have to say this is one of the best movies I have ever seen If not the best. Now, I know that is quite a bold statement but hey, I'm the kind of person to make statements like that. To a sci-fi/fantasy geek like me, Avatar was THE next big thing, the movie I waited a year for. I ordered midnight tickets to the IMAX, got there and hour early to pick out a good seat, etc. I literally sat through the movie with a huge smile on my face. Never have I felt so satisfied walking out of a movie.
Now a lot of the complaints focus on weak story and weak acting. To be honest, the acting in my opinion was fine. I'm not going to say that I will bow down to Sam Worthington but all the actors did a great job, particularly Zoe Saldana. I don't know if it was their portrayal, or the way the characters were written, but I found myself actually caring for the characters. Call me cold-hearted, but I couldn't have cared less if Frodo died in Lord of the Rings. The only people I cared for in those movies were Gandlaf and Aragorn. I don't like over-emotional characters, it simply bogs down the story. In this movie, I found myself caring for the main characters, on the edge of my seat during the finale.
One of the amazing things Cameron does is he has the guts to kill off nearly any character. He killed almost everyone in Aliens, everyone but the main in Terminator, and killed of poor Leo in Titanic. When characters started going in this movie, I got a little nervous for the leads. That tells me something! The fact that I was nervous for movie characters indicated to me that these were characters I truly cared about, that I wanted to live. In regards to to the story, ye sits predictable but so is everything. Originality is not in the destination always but in the journey. Just because we know the ending doesn't make the scenes leading up to it boring. I was engaged by the entire movie start to finish despite predicting what would happen.
The music, although I hear it copies a lot of Horner's previous work, felt perfect to me. I consider myself I bit of a movie music snob. I believe music can either make or break a movie, its that essential. It has to provide a great "feel" if you know what I'm saying. Some scenes in this movie left me in awe not only with the effects but the music as well. I love the use of choir and chanting in a film's score and there was plenty here. It just made me feel as if this was truly an "epic" movie, I don't know how to explain it.
I am not going to claim I am some movie critic and know all. I certainly don't and I am not here to analyze this film for all it's worth. I just know that a movie never made me feel this way before. I have seen it three times and I am dying to see it again. I listen to the soundtrack on an hourly basis. Hell, the IMDb page is my internet homepage and I regularly visit the Avatar Wiki. When I have left the theatre each time, I feel depressed, wishing I could see more, wishing our world was more like Pandora. I felt so connected throughout the entire movie that it was just frustrating to leave. Any movie that makes me feel this way is certainly considered by me to be one of the best movies ever. It's something I feel rather then something I can analyze. 10/10