Avatar: A Must See

I'm not a big blockbuster movie goer. I tend to gravitate toward independent and foreign films - or at least films with rich dialogue and complex characters. Cars blowing up or giant monsters attacking sky scrapers? Not interested. So, with the grandmothers available to babysit, when we decided to see Avatar (figuring that if we were ever going to see it, we should see it in the theater), I almost expecting to be disappointed.

Avatar serves up some of your typical blockbuster problems. As in Cameron's Titanic, the dialogue is at times laughable. The main "bad guy" is a marine intent on blowing up the planet of Pandora to get to their version of fossil fuels, which are called "unobtanium" here. (Why one of the writers didn't call this word out as a totally ridiculous to the point of distracting is beyond me.) He serves up plenty of "Take this, bitch!" dialogue, which delivered unintended laughs from the audience several times. And, truthfully, none of the characters are very well developed.

And yet, it's worth sitting through some of the ridiculous dialogue because the rest of the movie is incredible. James Cameron, as always, keeps you at the edge of your seat with his action sequences. He also offers a beautiful message about war, American culture and the environment. But the most incredible aspect of the movie is clearly the art and the technology. Mike wrote a great summary here of the human-like appearance of the avatars/aliens in the movie. As I said before, I'm usually not impressed with visual effects, but his movie was truly a splendor of color and creativity. When the movie ended, it took me about half an hour to get used to the dull colors that make up our existing world.

When the credits rolled at the end of Avatar, the theater was silent for a moment. Everyone seemed to be in shock after what they had just seen. Then a man in the audience yelled out, "Refund!" Everyone laughed. Go see Avatar while it is still in the theaters. Whatever your preference for movies is, I guarantee you will feel that you more than got your money's worth.