Avatar

It's hard to sit down and talk about a movie that has had so much hype around it that everything has already been said. That considered, I'll spare you and try to keep it as short and sweet as my poorly articulated ramblings will permit.

Generally speaking I hate big blockbuster, multi-million dollar budget hollywood films. The second last movie I saw was 2012; complete shite. However, James Cameron (the man behind Titanic) has executed Avatar in pristine fashion. Both written and directed by Cameron, I will hesitantly yet happily say it's probably the 'best' movie I've ever seen. Note the inverted commas. In terms of physical appearance, nothing can beat it. Even without the impressive 3D effect I've never sat through any movie that is more spectacularly beautiful to look at. The only thing that slightly sours it is the peripheral thought of the colossal budget needed to fund such a spectacle. However this is balanced by the humbling attention to detail in the meticulous craftsmanship. Being a bit of a tech-geek, I get major kicks from that sort of thing.

Avatar has a bunch of underlying messages in it. I might add that it's release time is undeniably no mistake either, directly on top of the Copenhagen Summit. It's also refreshing to see a movie where humans (Americans) were the bad guys, instead of charging in with guns and saving the world just like America is so good at.

In true Pavement Journal fashion I will move onto some negative points. Thankfully they are indirectly related to the movie Avatar. I know there were a few 3D movies to emerge in 09, such as Coraline (a witty but terrifying Tim Burton-esque kids movie) but none have received such attention as Avatar. So we can say that the 'first' 3D movie has set a whole new benchmark in cinematic experience. For many years film has been evolving gradually, however Avatar took it to the next level in a singular dramatic leap. A new standard has been set. I recall back to Toy Story, a marvel in animation and a great movie. However this paved the way for a plethora of shitty animation films (and a lot of great ones too!). So basically what I'm trying to say is that be prepared for a whole new flock of extremely big budget hollywood (Americanised and bastardised) blockbuster 3D films that are utter dribble. I can only hope that the massive production cost next to the risky gamble on box office revenue returns is enough to deter senseless scripts from being promoted to the nines for no good reason. But where there's a will there's a way and for Hollywood huge amounts of money is certainly a tantilising will.

Anyway, if you are one of the few people on earth who haven't seen it yet, do yourself a favour. Even if you are mundane about movies that lie in the same genre as Avatar, I believe you'll be pleasantly surprised. I was.