Avatar

The movie was hyped for months before it was released. We were supposed to be amazed at the technology. When I finally saw the trailer, I didn’t understand the hype. The story didn’t look too interesting to me and I didn’t see anything mind blowing. Maybe I was already amazed at Gollum in the Lord of the Rings movies. If it was 3D that was amazing, then that isn’t super exciting to me. It could be my vision being a bit off, but I don’t like wearing 3D glasses over my regular glasses. I actually like to go to theaters with big enough screens so I can get away with wearing any glasses, but I think I am missing out on some 3D action due to it. You can take all of this into account when reading this review.

I had heard that the story was a bit like Dances With Wolves. I also read that it should be seen in 3D to get the full effect. I think without that final bit, I would have waited to Netflix the movie, but I went off to see it in the fancy theater in 3D. I will say the 3D was better than I expected, but overall, I don’t know if it really added anything to the movie. I think it would have looked pretty damn cool without it. That could have been my whole crazy vision thing since I didn’t bring my glasses.

The storyline was pretty predictable and very much like Dances With Wolves. That wasn’t horrible, but it did make it on the cheesy side. There is an army guy who lost the use of his legs in combat and his veteran benefits don’t cover the cost of the surgery. Conveniently, he has a twin brother who just died, but was a scientist all ready to go to Pandora, which is another planet that Earth is trying to learn from its inhabitants while also trying to steal the lamest mineral ever, named unobtainium. Apparently, this is a real term, but it doesn’t make it sound any less lame.  The convenient part of the twin brother thing is that the government spent all this money on the dead brother to make him an avatar to communicate with the aliens, so they want the army brother to take over his spot even though he doesn’t know the language or anything about the aliens. Army brother likes this since he can “run” in the avatar, which he can’t do anymore.

Then we are beat over the head with the military and greedy business types are bad since they want to destroy everything on the planet looking for their lame mineral. Why can’t they just get along with the indigenous folks that are one with nature? It isn’t that I don’t agree with the sentiment, but it could have been done in a more subtle or complex way. It is a good thing that there was a lot of cool stuff to look at while all this plot stuff was going on. The avatars of the humans were pretty cool. Pandora was pretty. I did enjoy all the montages of Jake Sully learning the way of the blue people. I also really enjoyed the ending, which gave audiences exactly what they would have wanted. I went along for the ride, and while it was fun to look at, I just wish more time had been spent on the script compared to the special effects.

Grade: B

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