A long weekend.

Ah, the sensation that is Avatar. I call it the The DaVinci Code of movies.

James Cameron apparently took a dated SyFy (Siffy) movie script and threw $500 million at it. Don't get me wrong: it looks beautiful and all the technical aspects of the movie were incredibly well done. But 500 million dollars a good movie does not make. For example,

1. The plot, which was basically mashed together from several different movies, was predictable and cheesy. The parallels to the Iraq war were obvious and silly, and didn't really work with the plot. I remember reading someone's review, and he said "There's no point in this movie where you can't predict what's going to happen next." This is very, very true.
2. For the near-20 years that Cameron "worked" on this movie, I wish he had done a little bit of research on tribes. Clearly, these Na'vi were supposed to parallel Native American or African tribes. I'm sorry, a peace-loving people that detest needless killing would not be made entirely of skilled hunters. Also, for a tribe that's full of traditions, the Na'vi chick mated with Jake Sully (predictably) over her intended mate without any hesitation.
3. Completely one-dimensional (PUN INTENDED) characters. The "Get Some!" marine stereotype was done and buried during the post-Vietnam Era, move past it, Cameron. Oh, and that puppy-kicking general that never let up his desire to wipe out a civilization (FOR NO REASON, might I add) was unrealistic and unnecessary. Way to revive the '80s villain.
4. The horrible dialogue, and frankly, with the exception of Sigourney Weaver and the main Na'vi chick, the actors were pretty lousy, too.
5. WHY WOULD THERE BE A WATERFALL ON A FLOATING ROCK?
6. Unobtanium? Really? You didn't even want to try coming up with something better?
7. The technology generally was alright, but the power-loader robot suits which had hands were really not well thought out. How would they know where to find the trigger? Why couldn't they just have the guns attached, since these were military killing robots? Also, when the main baddie died in the suit, why did the robot fall to the ground?
8. The Deus-Ex-Machina ending. How convenient that the Na'vi happened to have the exact type of magic that would tranfer a human soul to an empty Na'vi body. What the hell reason would they have for needing that particular kind of magic?
9. If you're planning to have an air-strike on a target, why would you put soldiers on the ground? Also, for all their technology, apparently, laser-guided missiles were just not as good as a crate of explosives attached to a detonator.
10. For a 3 hour movie, the pacing was not that great.
11. I really wish that one of the Na'vi people had purred at some point. It would have been hilarious.
12. I realize that at this point I'm nit-picking, but why, if the Na'vi have four fingers on each hand, did they give the Avatars five fingers?


The 3-D aspect was good, but it definitely needs work. There were a lot of scenes where the 3-D was very useful, but for most of the movie, it really didn't make a difference, and for some of the movie it actually made things worse. I.e., when the camera tried to catch people running past it, it couldn't focus, so it mostly looked like a 3-D blur.

So if you want to see a bad movie that just happens to be exceptionally pretty, by all means. Overall, I don't recommend it, and I wouldn't see it again -- 3-D filming is only going to get better, and soon there will be movies which are pretty and good coming out. And honestly, don't waste your money on the IMAX 3-D. As time goes on, I am starting to agree more and more with R that the "IMAX experience" isn't necessarily better.

Honestly, I couldn't sleep last night because I was pissed about how bad this movie was, and how many rave reviews it was getting. Someone was talking about the Oscars for god's sake.

This is almost how pissed I was after I wasted my time reading a Dan Brown novel.


In another news, we went apartment-hopping with our Century 21 guy on Monday. We looked at two places and one of them we absolutely fell in love with. After talking about it, we were ready to sign on right away. The problem? (because of course there's a problem) The landlady has a No-Pets policy. Apparently our realtor thought we were kidding when we said we had two cats, so he showed us an amazing place that doesn't take any pets. Way to tease, damn guy. We're working on a negotiation, but your guess is as good as mine on how this will turn out. R is hopeful, I'm not so much. We'll see.