January 15, 2010

My Two Cents

Just saw Avatar. After all the rave reviews and people just about proclaiming it the greatest thing since sliced bread, I went in to the theater ready to be impressed. Here's my quick review:
Character development is about as thin as it was on Titanic. It is also just as predictable as that movie. The bad guys might as well wear appropriately colored hats or twirl their mustaches as they plan their evil schemes. The story is almost exactly the same as "Dances with Wolves", right down to the new language which was created for the movie which sounds a lot like a native American dialect. It was really pretty to look at, so it's got that going for it, which is nice. James Cameron used to write a screenplay and then push the envelope with special effects to fit that story. Now it seems as if he works the opposite way. He figures out what special effects are available and then writes a story to fit those effects. It's a great platform to show off the best in technology, but the story suffers greatly. If you liked DWW and are a fan of shallow character development and predictable plot points, then this is the movie for you. The IMAX 3D was very nice though (I guess they had to make it 3D to make up for the one dimensional characters), but it's DWW with bigger explosions and special effects.