Avatar = MASTERPIECE

Rating: 10/10 (13 January 2010)

Twelve years after coming out with "Titanic", the highest grossing film of all-time, James Cameron has created "Avatar", an absolute masterpiece. Climbing the charts by the day, Avatar has now reached second place all-time grossing nearly $US 1.15 billion worldwide and it's understandable! The movie focuses rather narrowly on a conflict between an indigenous people inhabiting a planet off in space called Pandora and corporate investors from planet Earth. In a rather personal, dramatic, and spectacularly visual way, it exposes a greed far too common here on Earth. Despite the 2.5 hour run time, there is never a dull moment. There is not even a slow moment. This production has fine tuned its focused tale to unwind perfectly. Cameron doesn't waste time with setting as we are trusted to figure out this new world on the go. Avatar is like no other movie. The scenery is absolutely beautiful and the movie explores new territories. It is visually spectacular and more than lives up to its hype. Cameron's long awaited and unbelievably expensive 3-D epic drags you in from the beginning and keeps you in until the end. Unexpectedly, the movie is inspiring and with its groundbreaking special effects, it is one you don't want to miss. You have to see it to believe itand even then, it is still hard to take it all in. Including such themes as environmental destruction, war and corporate corruption and even a love affair between two blue-skinned aliens which is surprisingly romantic and affecting, all in the context of a sci-fi adventure story. The movie is set in 2154 and revolves around a paralyzed man, Jake Sully. Following his brother's death, he is selected to the Avatar program to take his brother's place. He is taken to Pandora, a beautiful destination where the nabi population resides. The humans have genetically bred human-nabi hybrids known as Avatars. The more time he spends with the nabi population, the more attached Sully gets to them and will have to choose what side he is on --- the humans or the nabis?