Reviews

The film is worth seeing, I'll give you that. I recommend seeing it in 3D but not in IMAX, as I did, as I thought it was not worth the extra cost. My biggest problem with the film was it's writing and pacing, both of which take away from its full impact by taking us out of the lush visual story world that Cameron has created. At it's nearly 3 hour length, the film runs too long, and is overly dependent on visuals for visuals sake. In the writing department, the omnipresent narration by Sam Worthington's character not only does not make sense with in it's own framing device, but drags the film down by over explaining, redundant expository dialog and a condescending inability to allow the actors and the audience to understand the moments by visual and dramatic storytelling rather than let Cameron simply tell us.

Even though I found many of the characters archetypal and simplistic, the plot often stretched and full of holes, and the dialog often clichéd and/or lazy; I would give the film an 8/10 instead of a 6/10 if the two aforementioned issues of length and narration were addressed. It could have been even better with some stronger rewriting and honing. I would still say this film is worth seeing in theaters, because all of its value lays in its immersive 3D world which, due to the restraints of home video and theater technology, will simply not translate to home viewing. In the end, Avatar is a visually stunning, well acted tech demo with an excellent film trapped inside, unfortunately defeated due to its director's decidedly singular focus on visual splendor. It is not bad, and you will probably enjoy it far more than I did, but I personally am disappointed, because it could have been exceptional if the team behind it put half the effort in to the story that they put into the setting.

I won't tell you that SoaP is an ingenious film, its not. Neither, for the record, is George Romero's Zombie Zeitgiest "Dead" series. I say they are not ingenious films because they lack meaning, and deep intricate detail, excellent directing and plot. Neither is Adam West era Batman, but it defined a generation. What this is is an ingenious idea: A film that meets all of its promises, and goes to every and any length to satisfy the audience, the actors, and the third part of the new generation: The Internet. If you asked what this movie is about (and I would ask all the die-hard fans of camp horror to take a moment to realize that even your first momentary reaction was "what the hell did I just read/hear?") there is a good chance its not your film.

This film is so honest about itself that it makes the title of Night of The Living Dead seem cryptic. If this film title theory was applied to that particular movie its title would become "Dead People Who Come Back To Eat Other People" or "DPwCBtEOP". This in itself sets the tone of the film. Adrenaline driven fan fun. This movie tried to raise its MPAA Rating to R based on internet request (and for the record it successfully did). Imagine if popular opinion played more into this film.

This film runs rampant with its own sense of free wielding fun, which though directed mainly at high school and college guys, can give a lot of fun to the right set fans beyond that as well. This is film pulp fiction (no pun intended, although Jackson is a great actor who brings fun not only to himself but the entire audience): Its meaningless, its drivel, and its depraved, but it is so insanely absurd and surreal that you can't help but watch the screen as the metaphoric page turns. Its made for cheap fun and pull its weight every bit of the way.

Now this is no film for everyone, you have to like camp and horror, and (although I hope this implied) have a solid stomach. If you meet that, than you were probably in the theater with me today. To its credit, SoaP is original for its genre, has a lot of creative spins on old standards, and new and different fun quotable lines ("Oh, Great, Snakes on Crack!" is one of my favorites). Also, once again FOR THE GENRE, the acting was above par, and everyone was having fun.

I will say this, one other group that really loves this kind of movie is Artists and Filmmakers of tomorrow. Films like this were the favorite of directors ranging from Lucas to Tarantino, lest we forget, even Spielberg started his career with JAWS. As a student who hopes to one day be among these men, I'll try to explain why I think we love it. It is because we love too see that there is something in comedy, in absurdity and horror, in camp and predictability that can still be fun and energetic to an audience. Sometimes, the unexpected can get you off the ground, but letting the people have what they were so happy to order can give you love. In a year or two, come Halloween, kids dressed as snakes, surfers, and Samuel L. Jackson will line up at midnight, with maracas in one pocket, and spring loaded snakes in another, and will proudly declare that they want to see "Motherf**king Snakes on a Motherf**king Plane!"

there is always something to be said for fun. No one left this movie unhappy, and I can't say that about Schindler's List.

Peace Out Brothers and Sisters!

It is a fact that CGI film is an It-list item in Hollywood but that doesn't mean that every one that comes out is a good movie. Unfortunately for the thousands who have already seen this no one really warned them beforehand. This movie just doesn't have the writing to compare to Pixar or the Social Intelligence of Dreamworks to make it memorable or even good. It is a children's film, and the children will enjoy it, however, it is not enjoyable for a moment in story or humor or even acting for the older set, who , spoiled by the amazingly adult stories of Pixar and the snuck in tongue in cheek social and entertainment humor in Dreamworks.

The animation is good, not great, but good. Paralleled to roughly the level of the original Shrek, it still seems very sugar coated. It lacks the break through that Pixar brings on a yearly basis, and the likable pseudo realism of Dream work, but still, it cannot be called bad, and unfortunately, this is the films only redeeming factor.

The characters are idiotically typecast, and Robin Williams is stuck playing Genie, but without the magical power an flexibility that made the character and the movie in Alladin. HE, and almost all the cast are forced time and time again to result to levels of toilet humor (which, since the cast are all robots, makes an even lesser level of sense) and culture references already years behind (characters are seen singing hit me maybe one more time, one of the more painfully memorable pop songs of the turn of the century, during the climax, no less).

It makes an effort to be everything, pixar and dreamworks wrapped into one package, with everything from two original songs, one of them a concluding number, and the fantastical world of pixars films, but falls so dismally Short that one cannot help but see th e movie as even worse by comparison.

Avoid it unless the kids need to be distracted for a couple of hours.

Or by The Incredibles DVD instead.