Avatar 3-D

Seen at: Carmike 10, three weeks ago

Saw this under fun circumstances. Was out walking aimlessly in the early evening darkness, enjoying the cold air. Came back by the theater on the bike path. I detoured into the parking lot on a whim, popped up to the box office and resolved to see anything that was just about to start.

It was 8:20. The only movie that had recently started was Avatar, at 8:00. I knew the Carmike always has twenty minutes of trailers.

I asked the kid behind the glass, "Has Avatar started?"

He looked at the clock. Same thoughts as me. "It might have just started he said."

I thought a minute, then decided that such a movie requires seeing it from the first frame.

"Nah," I said, "I'll wait."

Without waiting, he replied, "You can go on in, and see."

I thought for moment. "If it's just now started as I walk in, can I pay you on the way out?"

"Sure," he said. I started to walk away to the door into the theater.

"Wait," he said. "You'll need these." He handed me the three-d glasses.

As I got into the auditorium, the last seconds of the last trailer played, and the distributor card came up that starts the movie. I slid into an available seat in the second row, front and center. Most of the theater behind me was well-occupied.

I realized almost immediately that the box office would be closed on the way out. Thus I was comped, for Avatar 3-D. It felt nice.

The movie really overwhelmed me. Everything they say about the virtual reality part of this movie is spot on. It really takes you to another world. Everyone who loves movies should see it in the theater while they can. It's truly a movie spectacle.

It did make me nauseous at a few times. At least five times I had to remove the 3-D glasses, especially in any vertigo situation. Taking off the glasses seem to work, and allow me to re-orient.

The story was much better than people have been saying. Yes, it borrows liberally from previous movies, and certain parts of the script seem to write themselves for ten or fifteen minutes at a time, but the story has more than enough novelty to make it worthwhile.

The strength of the movie, as far as novelty in story, was Sigourney Weaver's character, which plays heavily on her roles in the Alien movies and Gorillas in the Midst. Weaver is one of several strong female characters in this story. In fact, one can look at the entire movie as a commentary on the emergence of female power in the Postmodern Postmillennial U.S.

And yet the theme of the movie is supposed to be how humans have defiled their "mother". How odd. This kind of mind-weirdness helps makes the movie interesting in an almost sick fascination sort of way, by way of the contradictions it seems to hold.

What sucked about the movie? The dialog. It was just plain stupid and awesome. Many people have pointed out the groan-worthiness of "unobtanium," but my eyes were rolling twenty minutes before that particular bad note.

Also there are indeed major huge plot problems. Yes, the story is interesting, but there are terrible, terrible plot holes. For example, it is obvious that the hero of the story, the cross-over human, actually *brings about* the destructive battle through his personal actions. This is a mindblowing huge hole, from a classical point of view. Also (I'm not the only one to notice this) after the final "victory" the humans are marched off, presumably to return (?) next month and maybe, oh, wipe out the entire planet. There is no logical follow through in Cameron's storytelling in this regard. It's as if the virtual reality has sucked up all the oxygen of creativity in his movie making.

I'm left in awe, and also saying WTF very loudly.

A landmark in film making, and movie storytelling. Not the best motion picture of the year, because of the story deficiencies. Or maybe it is. I'm leaning towards another choice. But we'll see. I've got two weeks to decide.