Avatar is...meh.

Before I go on with our discussion of James Cameron's latest epic adventure:

Hehe. Lame tak update. Sowryy. No inspiration. And stress.


Anyway, went to the cinemas a few days ago and I watched the much hyped Avatar, which has been on my must watch list for quite some time now. Having watched the film, I was left with both feelings of amazement and a bit of disappointment. Why? Read on.

(SPOILER ALERT)

The thing about Avatar's storyline is that it feels too familiar to some other movies before it, where themes of colonization are most apparent. Man goes into the village, befriending the locals, with an ulterior motive that will make these locals hate him if it were to be found out. Man falls in love with the local hot babe and got hot n heavy and, BAM! Man switches camp and fights the colonizers alongside the locals.

Remind you of any movies you've seen before?

Ah, never mind. I'll relieve you off this difficult remembering task. Here are some stimulants.


Don't get me wrong, I can deal with familiarity. I don't mind when people make remakes or present storylines that are inspired by other movies or any other medium, I really don't. But what gets me is when a filmmaker decides not to bring anything new to the story, like an unusual culture, a twist in the character's back story, or anything that should make the film feel distinctive from where it draws its ideas or inspiration.


Avatar plays it safe by just pitting a similar story, without making it special by putting a different twist or element, ending up with a movie where you can guess the ending miles away before the credits roll. What's worse is that they gave the same treatment with script which was rather,well, normal. Samey. While normal's not bad, it certainly won't make listening to a conversation an interesting watch either. Most of the lines do not project much humor or wit needed to resonate any emotional connection with the audience. A lot of the film's experience is better appreciated visually, where the environmentalist message and theme of the film stood at its tallest.

Once you go blue, you'll never go back.

But when you talk about the visuals, Avatar is simply phenomenal, from start to finish, it's quite a spectacle. This is perhaps where Cameron and his team brought their A-game to, and it clearly shows. The depth in imagination presented in the world of Pandora is simply eye catching, From the floating mountains to the huge tree where the Navis inhabit, everything is shown with such panache that its hard not to just find your eyes feasting on the world that has been conceived wonderfully.

And let's not forget the amazing implementation of CG in creating the blue skinned Navi people. Without compromising for fully CG created characters, they decided to blend the actors facial animations with a touch of CG so that the characters movement would not be hampered by the uncanny valley problem. There is no dodgy looking animations and movements here, everything looks so exquisitely pieced together by the wizards at hollywood. The film's awesome visuals itself is worth the admission price.

If only they went a bit further with the script and the story, it would have been a really lasting experience. Shame.

PS: If you have differing opinions than mine, feel free to comment, a good discussion is always welcome.