AVATAR - Movie review

I'll start off by saying that this movie wasn't just good...it was REVOLUTIONARY! Meaning this has changed filmmaking and the way we will look at movies from this year forth. I'm talking about AVATAR.

When the film was first advertised I honestly had no interest at all to see it, I thought it was going to be another hyped up fantasy blockbuster that ends up being cheesy and cartoonish for kids to enjoy. I was so wrong. I went to see the 3-D version with my friends, which I think is the only way to get the real feeling of the film.

STORY
The story takes place in the future on a distant planet called Pandora. Jake Sully, an ex-marine who is now paraplegic and bound to a wheelchair, is offered to join a military program on Pandora that is conducting research on the planet and its inhabitants, the Na'vi. Because the air is toxic to humans, each person uses an Avatar that is controlled by their mind at the base, which looks and breathes like the blue Na'vi creatures. Jake's Avatar befriends a Na'vi princess named Neytiri, who brings him to her colony. At first the rest of the Na'vi race wants to kill him, knowing he is just a human using a Na'vi body to explore the planet. He tells them he is there to learn their ways of life, and they accept him. As Neytiri introduces Jake to this beautiful utopian world, he begins to realize that life on this planet is filled with beauty and love for nature, every living thing is connected with each other. The Na'vi are just simple beings who appreciate the beauty of life and the world around them. The only true enemy to the planet is mankind, who is trying to take over and destroy the beautiful Pandora land to obtain a special mineral that is only found there. Jake must choose a side, continue taking orders from his human race, or help the alien Pandora race.

The film runs at about 2hrs and 40min, which may seem long, but there wasn't one minute where I wanted to look away. The world of Pandora that is introduced to us is so beautiful, full of never before seen colors, plants, animals, purity, peace...a paradise world that brought chills down my spine. While I was watching it I thought to myself, wow what an ugly world WE live in, our planet could have been like that but mankind has destroyed it. Watching it in 3-D is a roller coaster ride, for the first time in years I was transported from my seat in the theater, and into another world. That's what movies should do, they should transport the audience through a journey, and that's exactly what Avatar does. What's extraordinary about this film, is that the computer generated creatures used to show the Na'vi race are the actual actors talking and moving, while a sensor copies the movements in a computer animating the creatures. The facial expressions, the way they talk, move their hands, everything is in real time. A new revolutionary way of filmmaking, rather than creating the characters later in CGI and animating them like a cartoon. This film was shot on the set, in real time. Finally someone has brought something new to the table, and James Cameron has proven himself again. Also the music plays a HUGE role in the film, so soothing, thanks to James Horner who always works with Cameron, including in his other box office hit Titanic.

For Avatar, writer and director James Cameron created an entire new visual world, even with its own native language. The language of the Na'vi spoken in the film has an actual dictionary of words created by James Cameron himself. The man is amazing.

With all this said, if you haven't seen this movie yet or feel skeptical about going to see it, YOU MUST SEE IT TO BELIEVE IT! That's all I can say really, you will not appreciate it fully until you see it for yourself. Enjoy.

-Giovanni Tartaglia-