Great old school action adventure with a modern twist

Rating: 8/10 (21 February 2010)

I'll keep this short, for what Avatar is, an old school action adventure using the latest effects, its a triumph, I had my expectation set at a cautious level due to the fact James Cameron is not a master story teller, script writer and any of those other things that people have said. What he is, is visionary in the ways he pushes the envelope in relation to effects and action. I plain hated Titanic, take away the technical achievement what do you have, 1 dimensional characters, leads you couldn't care about and I had to sit through 3 hours of boredom before I got to see it sink. This on the other hand had my attention from the word go, the 3D work once my eyes got used to it (took about 20 mins) was seamless and immersing, I just wish we had an IMAX cinema in Wellington to see it properly. The character animation performances where as natural as I've seen since Gollum in LOTR. I bought it and went along for the ride, life changing it wasn't but the story telling and scripting were on a par with Star Wars, which if you strip back the fanboy adulation were pretty basic and not exactly groundbreaking, it all cam down to the execution. It also helped that I read the reviews here and saw all the flaming and hating from people who "know" cinema. They seem so far up their own backside that they cant just enjoy a summer blockbuster. James Cameron has got me interested again in where he's going next, which is a big thing cause I ain't been interested since T2 and even that pi$$ed me off that he couldn't even stick to his own mythology. So bravo James Cameron, Best Film Oscar maybe not but a great night out at the cinema, YES! and you've managed to buck the trend and have a film still filling cinemas weeks after release, cant remember when the last time it happened. OK it wasn't so short, sorry :- )