There's a lot to be said of the last huge blockbuster of the decade, "Avatar". Coming from James Cameron, director of epic adventures "Titanic" and "The Terminator", comes a story that is sure to visually stun you with unimaginable feats. If you're looking for much else, I suggest you keep walking.
The story focuses on an army and a parapelligic member named Jake Scully who travel to the planet Pandora to do research. Instead of donning space suits and oxygen masks, the way for them to travel the native land is to take on the form of an avatar: an eight foot striped blue creature.
Once out on the land, the special effects really begin to feel special. We are met with unusual creatures, floating waterfalls, and birds with multiple sets of wings. Cameron has managed to make the world look breathtakingly different without adding too much fright as Tim Burton would've done.
Once Jake Scully meets up with the land's natives, who also are eight foot striped blue creatures, things begin to change. The army now forces Scully to stay with the clan and learn about their ways from the lead female shaman.
To give away too much more would ruin the rest of the plot.
While this movie manages to look visually stunning, it manages to go astray with poorly written dialogue and a plot that could've been wrapped up in less than the two and a half hours it took up. This is most notably noted in the fight scenes, which equal over thirty minutes of mindless gun fire and noise that while better than anything Michael Bay has done, still seems mindless and does little to stimulate the plot and my interest in the characters.
This film is ambitious and Cameron definitely wanted to gloat, but how much is enough? His last movie, "Titanic" featured a boat sinking for ninety minutes. That's hardly a man who knows how to entertain me. He claims that this one makes "Titanic" look like a picnic. In truth, if you removed the CGI, you just get a cliche action movie that makes me groan as I try to count up how much money was wasted on an effects-to-writers ratio.
While this movie isn't a total failure for me, it's not one I would recommend and definitely is not the final blockbuster I would've liked to end the decade on. But this decade has provided us with some fun ones that have pushed boundaries and stimulated intellects simultaneously, an art form within itself that I pity Cameron for not having.
I did however find an interesting game on trying to figure out who was the sexiest blue character in the movie. I may have not found an answer, but it definitely helped make my experience more tolerable.
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