Avatar
2009 | 162 minutes | Rated PG-13
(based on 6 user reviews)
Official Site: www.avatarmovie.com
Director: James Cameron
Producer: James Cameron, Jon Landau, Colin Wilson and Laeta Kalogridis
Cast: Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Sigourney Weaver, Stephen Lang, Michelle Rodriguez, Giovanni Ribisi, Joel David Moore, CCH Pounder, Wes Studi, Laz Alonso, Dileep Rao, Matt Gerald, Sean Anthony Moran, Jason Whyte, Scott Lawrence and Kelly Kilgour
- « Previous day
- Thursday, September 9
- Next day »
Sorry there are no showtimes for Avatar on Thursday, September 9.
Showing 1-5 of 7
Add a review | All reviews/comments »
Sitting next to a friend during Avatar he said something to me that I feel sums up the experience of the movie fairly well, "This is what I've always wanted," he said while grinning wildly, "a three hour long universal studios ride!" And that's exactly what Avatar felt like to me.
Yes, it's unlike anything I have ever seen. So it's easy, for the first hour, to get so lost in the landscape and its botany and wildlife that you barely notice, or have need for, the tired, recycled storyline. Then about an hour in, you notice how cartoonish the villains are, and you start to realize you've seen this story before. The white man goes to a beautiful, yet misunderstood culture and falls in love with a gorgeous woman from that culture. He then has epiphany that it is this culture that is living the "right" way and decides to fight alongside that culture against the white man.
My issue isn't with believability. It's not hard to convince me that "the white man", or in this case "the humans," for the most part are greedy and exploitative. My issue is that the use of that old, predictable storyline here is just that, a reproduction of it. It brings nothing new to the table and dives no deeper into the conflict. In fact, the study of the culture and the conflict is even more surface than Dances with Wolves.
But enough about the story, because that isn't why you go to see Avatar. You go because it's a three hour long universal studios ride for $10. You go because the 3D is done so well I literally slapped at bugs on my arms throughout the film. You go because the depiction of the planet Pandora with its ultra violet colors, huge waterfalls, and dense fog is so visually stunning and meticulously detailed that they could show it (without the characters) at science museums and people would still come and watch it. You go because you'll probably have to tell your grand kids that you went. So go, and laugh at the story (because if you're anything like me the dialogue will seem too cheesy to even attempt to take seriously) and eat popcorn and enjoy the ride. There are far worse ways to spend three hours and ten bucks.
Isn't the perfect movie about being able to spend 2 1/2 hours while suspending disbelief and allowing yourself to be transported to another world, another vision. If so this is the most compelling, absorbing movie I've seen since in ages. The spectacle, the wonder the absorption and thrill are indescribable until you've seen it. Forget the little nattering naysayers; this movie has to be experienced.
It's a long blockbuster thrill ride and it's incredible. Without analyzing it, I loved it. I was like nothing I've ever experienced in cinema before. I want to go to see again, just to see it. It just looks absolutely incredibly beautiful.
I understand that the plot or dialog brings noting new to the table, but you have to go see it to understand why it doesn't matter at all.
The handsome plot works just fine even if we've heard it before. You can't risk ruining the most amazing movie you'll ever seen(visually) with a plot that doesn't work. I wouldn't have preferred it any other way
Go see this movie or youll regret it. Seeing on on DVD won't cut it
I'm with Bobby B123 re: his sort of begrudging acceptance of the corny nature of the film, but unlike him, I seem to be in the unhip minority that thinks Avatar should be taken at least somewhat seriously as well... despite those cheesy/cliche surface elements.
I understand it is easy to attack, but I think the brainiac coalition needs to come to terms with the fact that Cameron has different priorities. At the very least, simplistic/archetypal characters and narrative arcs don't bother him - if anything, they excite him by offering a simple framework that taps into our collective human desires for an accessible overarching mythology while allowing him the ability to DENSELY color within that frame (among other things) a fairly radical, blunt, and timely commentary on post 9-11, post-Halliburton imperialism, simultaneously drawing us into the past and future, while asking whether the interconnectedness brought to us by science&technology through the internet, social networking, etc. (mirroring the interconnectedness the Na'vi experience) can help produce positive social change or will only be continually dominated and perverted by transnational (transglobal?) corporate capitalism.
and Avatar - by its loaded title, by the relationship of its form to its content, by its narrative, by its now-historic economic success and its technological landmark status - seems to ask the same of itself... and of us: can we effectively subvert the system (or even see that it NEEDS subverting) while existing within its confines?
It is miles from flawless, but I don't think people should look down their noses at such a densely textured work so easily just because it has some cheesy lines and well worn arcs.
...ideas which can maybe be found stated better (or at least at greater length) in the following discussion:
http://ashleyfmiller.wordpress.com/2010/01…
izauze"AT"gmail"DOT"com...
Reviews/comments (7) RSS
