Monday, December 21, 2009

Boo Avatar


I wish I wouldn’t have spent $22.00 (for 3-D) and 3 hours of my life watching this movie when I could have been home…in my bed… sleeping.

Somebody tell me why this movie is getting such good reviews. Hylan and I both strongly disliked it. Try as I might, I fell asleep in the middle (because I turn into a pumpkin after 10:00 pm) even though I was trying to have a “blank canvas”—good attitude—stay awake approach to this film.

Here are some reasons why we didn’t like this movie and are completely baffled by the good reviews.

Although it is “visually appealing,” and admittedly should get an “A” for animation/special effects, the plot gets a "C-" at best. It was supposed to be this epic battle and yet there was no real complexity to the plot. The military guys were almost completely one-dimensionally evil and the blue-cat-like-Indian with African tendencies-tall-tailed-tribal “people” were almost entirely one-dimensionally good. If one were to draw some real-life historical parallels, one couldn’t because last time I checked that’s not really how it went down in America. Am I right people? I’m quite sure there is more good and bad on both sides. But perhaps that’s not a parallel that was meant to be made.

Meow

Although imaginative and beautifully colorful, I was kind of lost in this “fake-y” world that was trying to be humanistic and alien or something, but wasn’t really either or both. For example, the rhinoceros/dinosaur/hammerhead shark violently destructive animal; I didn’t get it. And the indulgently gratuitous chase scene with the aforementioned animal was annoying and stupid…and oh wow, (spoiler alert) they save the day in the end. How awesome. And oh, (spoiler alert) the ending was truly “the icing on the cake.” I just loved how Mr. Main Broken Human Character fully assimilated himself into the tribal/alien nation and lived happily ever after. But the rest of the “good scientist guys/girls” they all had to die as martyrs. But at least the main bad scar-faced guy died in the end. Shew. Hopefully there will be no sequels.

By the way, I thought the blue “humanoids” had carbon steel bones or something and were difficult to kill, (spoiler alert) but then I’m pretty sure they were machine-gunned down quite easily by the evil-military guys. And all this for a piece of special rock that was worth millions upon billions of dollars. I mean really people. Can we try a little harder when we write movies? I’m tired of trite, clichéd, superficial plots. I need substance. Oh yeah, and weren’t those poison dart arrows supposed to be powerful and lethal and yet when things weren’t going well, they bounced right off the military flying things, but when things were going better, they pierced right through. I was so confused.

“A glorified Fern Gully,” said one customer of Hylan’s at the bank. Indeed. Touché. (Says me). “That’s exactly right on,” said Hylan in response.
Ugh.

Yay or Nay for Avatar. Comments?

2 comments:

Caroline said...

I'm voting a Nay on this one. I don't even want to see it. I'm so tired of political messages in my movies. Sounds cheesy. Thanks for the warning.

LadyEm said...

Yeah, I actually deleted my comment about how I don't like political agendas in movies...because that's a whole other argument.