dtraCorp - review: avatar... in 3d!!

review: avatar... in 3d!!

16th-jan-2010 - posted by dtra

yeah, so we've all heard the avatar story by now, boy meets alien girl, boy falls in love with alien girl, boy loses alien girl, boy gets alien girl back. went to watch it at the imax, it was probably worth it to see what all the fuss was about, the 3d, and the cgi. the film itself was pretty boring, kind of independence day meets pocahontas (i haven't seen pocahontas or heard the story, so that's a completely ignorant guess). the aliens (in this case, the humans) want to mine the planet of pandora for the very expensive and very valuable mineral unobtainium (who came up with that?), why it's so valuable, and why there is only one place on this planet, and in the universe (it seems) that has the mineral, we are not told, but unfortunately for them, the are human-like indigenous tribes (that sound eerily similar to african people, especially when they speak english) living in that area. obviously they don't want to move, and the humans aren't willing to give up the mineral deposit. so the army is sent in to blow the place up (whose idea was it to use a lot of terrorism-inspired dialogue?).

i probably skipped a big part of the story, the humans have developed a way to transplant a human brain (figuratively speaking) into an alien body (artificially created) so that they can interact with the locals in a more personal manner. that's the end of the review, basically, if you absolutely must see this film, it's probably better to watch it in 3d, so that it doesn't seem like you miss out on anything. the 3d graphics are pretty amazing, and the 3d film (while a bit disconcerting to begin with) is pretty cool (personally though, i'd probably just prefer to watch films normally until they give you proper wrap-around glasses that don't allow reflections in, and don't have gaps), the depth is very cool in some sequences, unfortunately (at least for me), not in the parts you'd really want it, the action scenes where you might think that arrows are coming straight for you or something. don't sit at an angle, the pictures become blurry, and try your best to get a seat in the middle of the cinema (we were off to the left a bit) so that you get the whole picture.

so in conclusion, the film was probably exactly what i expected, lots of very cool graphics and little else. i do like it when i have to guess who did what, especially based on knowledge gained during the film. i knew i was in for a long one (about two and a half hours) when the aliens started speaking alien language with subtitles, made up languages are never a good sign for me (though it was ok in district 9 until the story changed). i just read that there will be two more avatar films, i hope in the second one the humans come back and destroy the planet and take the goods, and then the third one the natives retake what is theirs, and also form a truce with the humans .

picture taken from wikipedia site.