This year was pretty decent for movies, once again we've had some masterpieces and we've had some heaps of crap but James Cameron wanted to end the year off with a massive entry into the film industry. It took him fifteen years to make this movie, as he had to invent the technology possible to make a movie like this and he'd promised some big things in the last couple of months. Now this film was hyped up pretty good and Cameron is good at hyping things up and he was just coming off of the biggest film ever made (Titanic) so how did this one measure up? Well let me say this film is something different and is a new kind of film that took me by surprise.
Avatar has a simple core story that is easy to follow, the story is the most lacking part of this film, it's so simple but at the same time Cameron manages to involve us emotionally so that we care what happens. He is a master of emotion and bringing emotion out of his characters and actors and here he does just that; this movie is filled with life and emotion, there are times where it's heartbreaking and gut wrenching but then there are times where you want to stand up and fight with these aliens because it's so epic in scale. Cameron approaches storytelling in a totally different way here though, he doesn't use dialogue to drive the story, but he uses his effects and the world he's created to tell the story and the 3-D element helps drive the story too. We have a classic story of humans expanding and endangering the Navi, and we have a classic villian who's just always badass, and we have a conflict that builds and builds until the exciting conclusion.
This movie is absolutly stunning; I've never seen special effects like this, the 3-D just immerses the viewer into this world, you feel apart of this world as you watch it, and this movie is pure imagination. Watching this film is like watching a moving piece of artwork, it's such a beautiful motion picture, frankly this movie could've had no story at all and crappy actors and I still would've watched it just because of it's beautiful colors, creatures, and environments. There are so many colors to wonder at, so many creatures to marvel at and the landscapes are truly breathtaking, there were times when my jaw hit the floor just because what I was watching was marvelous. The last 40 minutes features a massive fight between the humans and the Navi and this fight was amazing, breathtaking, and thrilling cinema, Cameron has delivered on multiple scales.
The acting was great, Sam Worthington was an excellent lead and the supporting actors were awesome as well, sci-fi great Sigourney Weaver was in this as well as some others and they all complimented each other greatly. Cameron used video logs to drive Worthington's character and I thought this trick worked great, it's something new, and it did drive the movie very nicely, the plot was predictable and the character's could've been a bit more dynamic, but they were easy to get attached to emotionally which is one of Cameron's big successes as a director. This movie had stellar action as well, the special effects are the best I've ever seen, and the fights were just huge, epic and breathtaking, everything you could ask for in a movie.
Overall this movie is extraordinary; it's huge and scale and exactly what we were waiting for and expecting from James Cameron. Sure the plot could be a bit better and the characters could be a bit better but this movie is a masterpiece in terms of technicality. The special effects were jaw dropping, the characters were beautiful, the environments were breathtaking, and the action was just awesome. Finally, Cameron has used his full imagination and we get to see it in action and it's beautiful, this movie is so captivating and fun to watch, this movie is a piece of art and a truly realized vision, it's a beautiful vision. What a great way to end the year.
