Reviews by Matt

Hype.

Most major movie releases have some. Summer movies get more than most just because the summer is a huge time for the movie studios. This hype can be avoided by most of the population. They may hear/see something every now and then, but they can remain unaffected. Then there is the hype of a movie like “Avatar” which can only be classified as unavoidable.

Think of “Avatar” as “Dances With Wolves” with big blue catlike people. A man, Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) is picked to deal with a group of natives, in this case the Na’vi, in order to exploit something they have; the comically named “unobtainium.” To do this, his brain is linked with an avatar or a body grown from a mix of human and Na’vi DNA. While following orders he ends up falling in love with one of the native people; Jake falls for Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) and fights against his people to help the natives.

Story wise, this movie is complete crap. There is nothing new and nothing innovative is achieved. So why then was this placed at No. 7 on my list of best movies from the year? Simple. The effects are simply stunning.

Part of the reason why the budget for this movie is rumored to by $500 million is because director James Cameron had to invent new technology to make this movie work. He invented a way to see a scene with rough digital effects right there on set.
Normally it would take some postproduction work for a director to see what the effects would look like in the shot. This new technique allowed him to make changes on set as needed to make things work better. The effects are great and when about 65 percent of the movie is computer generated, it has to or the movie would fail. The detail in the backgrounds of the jungle scenes is stunning. The look of the characters is great and they look a lot like the actors who play them.

The big thing everyone is talking about is the 3-D. A lot of the current 3-D movies use that extra dimension to add gimmicks like stuff flying at you. “Avatar” uses it to enhance what is already there. Things like dust that looks closer to the viewer or people moving in the background seem farther away add a depth to the scene that one cannot get in the traditional 2-D movie. The advantage to this type is that there is less of a chance of motion sickness because the 3-D is not as obtrusive as with other movies.

The movie has already made over $1 billion worldwide so clearly the hype helped. The movie might lack in story, but it makes up for it in breath taking effects. The only way to see this is in the theater. I have no intention of seeing this on DVD because nearly everything I liked about the movie will be lost when it goes 2-D and small.

7 out of 10
Rated PG-13 for intense epic battle sequences and warfare, sensuality, language and some smoking.
162 min