Hey Kids! Shelly Here!

To quote Fortress of Solitude: “James Cameron opened his bag of film cliches and threw them all on the table.” It’s true. Every single movie he’s made before showed up in Avatar, including digging up Sigorney Weaver (which by the way, I have to say I loved seeing as a blue 9ft tall Pandorian – girl you got it going ON!). Story-wise, there ain’t anything new here and at 2hrs 45 min, Avatar is like eating the best junk food you’ve ever tasted. Good going in but oh the guilt as it settles in your gut.

But you’re not there to see Othello, aren’t you? Yes the visuals are stunning. He’s managed to create CGI characters that don’t look like puppets. He’s broke the “dead eye” barrier and has created extremely lifelike virtual actors on screen. But to say that Avatar is “the Star Wars of this generation” is some PR wizard wanking in your face. I would say story-wise, it’s “Battle Beyond the Stars”. Yeah the story is that much of a rip off of Braveheart and Dances With Wolves.

Is Avatar “game changing” as so many fanboys spew out on their blogs? Technically yes – it’s entirely possible to resurrect life-like actors from the grave (the voice might be worrisome – hence why this year’s surprise and uncredited performance of a young un-wrinkly Arnold Schwarzenegger in Terminator Salvation) . Cameron’s use of 3D wasn’t gimmicky or overwrought, he knew his depth and when to use it, but if you saw Pixar’s “UP” this year you saw how 3D could be used without resorting to “spears in the lens” tricks to remind you about the 3D. After 15 years of gratuitous CGI, we’re learning that the effects can’t prop up a good story. It has to work with it to make a great movie. And this is where Avatar fails. Like George Lucas, someone has got to wrestle the pen from James Cameron and let someone else do the writing.

I say go see it – the visuals are that good. But have fun. Comment loudly about how awful the story is.