Movie Review: Avatar 3D
Movie Review: Avatar 3D
I am fresh back from the 7:30 showing of Avatar in 3D on screen #1 at Paradiso.
I am going to refrain from spoilers in this short review.
Let me say this first: This is the movie of the century. Period.
It is hard to fathom that 98% of this movie is CGI because it is REAL. Real, living, breathing, sweating, growling, LIVING. The 3D is less about the schlock in your face value and more about incredible depth of field. It seriously, believably looks like you are looking through a window out into the horizon.
This is the first 3D movie I have ever seen in the theater. I was pretty skeptical going in. But I am a believer now, let me tell you.
The Na'vi are incredibly beautiful. Such grace, cat-like reflexes, and when needed, unbridled viciousness.
The moon-planet of Pandora is a character unto itself, literally. And the landscapes are gorgeous and beyond words. The amazing "Floating Mountains of Pandora" are certainly the sight of a lifetime.
The varied flora and fauna are most realistic. No matter how fantastic they may come off initially, they still have a presence on screen.
If you don't see another movie for the next decade, make sure you see this.
I am going to refrain from spoilers in this short review.
Let me say this first: This is the movie of the century. Period.
It is hard to fathom that 98% of this movie is CGI because it is REAL. Real, living, breathing, sweating, growling, LIVING. The 3D is less about the schlock in your face value and more about incredible depth of field. It seriously, believably looks like you are looking through a window out into the horizon.
This is the first 3D movie I have ever seen in the theater. I was pretty skeptical going in. But I am a believer now, let me tell you.
The Na'vi are incredibly beautiful. Such grace, cat-like reflexes, and when needed, unbridled viciousness.
The moon-planet of Pandora is a character unto itself, literally. And the landscapes are gorgeous and beyond words. The amazing "Floating Mountains of Pandora" are certainly the sight of a lifetime.
The varied flora and fauna are most realistic. No matter how fantastic they may come off initially, they still have a presence on screen.
If you don't see another movie for the next decade, make sure you see this.
just got home from watching the movie. i really enjoyed the movie, but it seemed like it was a bit too long. there were moments where it seemed sort of awkward but overall i loved it. as you said, the scenery was AMAZING.
We saw it yesterday, IMAX 3D. I was completely awestruck by the visual intensity of the film. Bravo to James Cameron for waiting 10 years -- until the technology caught up with his vision -- to make this movie. Visually it is nothing short of revolutionary.
The story is pretty darn good too, certainly good enough to keep me entertained throughout the entire length of the film, which at 2:46 is not exactly short.
I can't recommend this movie highly enough. Go, go, go. IMAX if at all possible. You'll be so immersed you'll find yourself reaching out to brush insects away. There has never been anything like it. Finally, 3D done right.
The story is pretty darn good too, certainly good enough to keep me entertained throughout the entire length of the film, which at 2:46 is not exactly short.
I can't recommend this movie highly enough. Go, go, go. IMAX if at all possible. You'll be so immersed you'll find yourself reaching out to brush insects away. There has never been anything like it. Finally, 3D done right.
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Joined: Jan 2010
Posts: 1
From: MA, AM
The Real Value of James Cameron's "Avatar"
All the reviews of Avatar I’ve read seem to miss the real value of this visually stunning movie set on the fantastically alive planet of Pandora. While aspects of the plot are predictable, Avatar offers some powerful messages for our time once you scratch beneath the surface.
For those who are not firmly entrenched in our mainstream culture’s cynicism and denial the movie, Avatar, is a powerful opportunity to sharply see and feel our current situation as a species that has lost its way. As we experience the lives of Pandora’s indigenous people our own predicament comes into contrast. We become visible as a species that has become trapped within its own culture and system of domination and control... cut off from what really enlivens us.
It is surprising that a movie with some of the messages of Avatar could even come out of the corporate dominated “homeland” that the USA has become. I wonder how many of the people walking out of the cinema really get it... that we, the consumers (no longer citizens) of industrial civilization are on the side of the baddies in this film. Not just occasionally, randomly bad... not just a few bad eggs such as the cold-hearted leader of the mercenaries on Pandora, Colonel Quaritch... but that our whole way of life is portrayed for what it is... inherently, pathologically insane.
When Quaritch declares “We’ll fight terror with terror.” he is speaking for us. We are the culture which for centuries has crushed all opposition to our vast insatiable resource demands. The Pandora native, Neytiri, speaks of their efforts to enlighten their would-be human “educators” and in one line says it all, “We couldn’t save them from their insanity.”
That the writer and director, James Cameron, was given the freedom to convey his messages is probably due to his prior huge financial successes with Titanic and Terminator II. And, of course, he still had to include the requisite action and romance components for Avatar to receive the US $400 million in funding he needed.
In the movie, the planet itself finally strikes back against the humans attempting to destroy nature for their short-sighted short-term gains. Some may disagree, but I see that there is symbolism intended here. Outside the movie, our own planet will also strike back. Perhaps not in as visually dramatic a way as on Pandora but in even more deadly terms over the time frame of the next 100 years according to the science on climate change. (For those still confused by all the hot air on the subject of climate change read the facts in Poles Apart: Beyond the shouting who’s right about climate change?)
James Cameron is no fool. He could have just made a blockbuster. Instead, he is using one of the few remaining effective means of communicating with the masses in an age of information overload to say “wake up, look at the path we are on and get off it while we still can!” For we are, in fact, facing a perfect storm of six global threats of which climate change is but one.
But unlike in Avatar, we don’t have another planet to flee back to.
Mitch Lawrie
Transition Strategist
www.TransitionWise.org
Wise Up To The Great Transition
For those who are not firmly entrenched in our mainstream culture’s cynicism and denial the movie, Avatar, is a powerful opportunity to sharply see and feel our current situation as a species that has lost its way. As we experience the lives of Pandora’s indigenous people our own predicament comes into contrast. We become visible as a species that has become trapped within its own culture and system of domination and control... cut off from what really enlivens us.
It is surprising that a movie with some of the messages of Avatar could even come out of the corporate dominated “homeland” that the USA has become. I wonder how many of the people walking out of the cinema really get it... that we, the consumers (no longer citizens) of industrial civilization are on the side of the baddies in this film. Not just occasionally, randomly bad... not just a few bad eggs such as the cold-hearted leader of the mercenaries on Pandora, Colonel Quaritch... but that our whole way of life is portrayed for what it is... inherently, pathologically insane.
When Quaritch declares “We’ll fight terror with terror.” he is speaking for us. We are the culture which for centuries has crushed all opposition to our vast insatiable resource demands. The Pandora native, Neytiri, speaks of their efforts to enlighten their would-be human “educators” and in one line says it all, “We couldn’t save them from their insanity.”
That the writer and director, James Cameron, was given the freedom to convey his messages is probably due to his prior huge financial successes with Titanic and Terminator II. And, of course, he still had to include the requisite action and romance components for Avatar to receive the US $400 million in funding he needed.
In the movie, the planet itself finally strikes back against the humans attempting to destroy nature for their short-sighted short-term gains. Some may disagree, but I see that there is symbolism intended here. Outside the movie, our own planet will also strike back. Perhaps not in as visually dramatic a way as on Pandora but in even more deadly terms over the time frame of the next 100 years according to the science on climate change. (For those still confused by all the hot air on the subject of climate change read the facts in Poles Apart: Beyond the shouting who’s right about climate change?)
James Cameron is no fool. He could have just made a blockbuster. Instead, he is using one of the few remaining effective means of communicating with the masses in an age of information overload to say “wake up, look at the path we are on and get off it while we still can!” For we are, in fact, facing a perfect storm of six global threats of which climate change is but one.
But unlike in Avatar, we don’t have another planet to flee back to.
Mitch Lawrie
Transition Strategist
www.TransitionWise.org
Wise Up To The Great Transition
Member
Joined: Apr 2009
Posts: 1,058
From: SoCal/Castaic
Another one of those guy gets girl, guy loses girl, guy get gets girl.
I liked the effects, but the plot is nothing new. It's hard to make anything new these days... Matrix was the last more or less new type of movie, but not even idea.
If you don't mind listening to lyrical music and seeing all the emotions and the characters kissing and saying other bullshit, then watch it for the effects in 3d.
I watched it with a poor projector after the theater and it was a run of the mill movie, indeed on the long side.
I liked the effects, but the plot is nothing new. It's hard to make anything new these days... Matrix was the last more or less new type of movie, but not even idea.
If you don't mind listening to lyrical music and seeing all the emotions and the characters kissing and saying other bullshit, then watch it for the effects in 3d.
I watched it with a poor projector after the theater and it was a run of the mill movie, indeed on the long side.
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