Lights, Camera, Action!

Before I begin, I’ll say this: I have yet to see Avatar. Yes, I know, it’s a movie that MUST be seen, since it’s “the best movie ever made,” but, I’ve been slightly incapacitated, thus making me unable to go to the theater to see anything. I have watched quite a few movies while I’ve been at home, and I intend to make a set of “mini-reviews” in the near future on a few of those.

But, back to Avatar. I’ve been hearing from many people who have seen it that it is one of the best movies ever made, it’s a visual spectacle, and that it’s completely groundbreaking in technique.

I have seen the trailers, and a few scenes from it, and, judging by that, I can clearly see that it’s completely groundbreaking in its use of the technology, and that it is clearly a visual spectacle. However, there are a few hesitations that I have about this movie that makes me not want to rush to the theaters to see it, incapacitated or not.

That first hesitation (and in turn, the one that leads to more or less everything else in my argument against Avatar) is James Cameron. I’ve seen a few of his movies, and, while they are ok, they are far from the best movies of all time, despite the fact that he currently holds both the first and the second top grossing movies of all time (the other one being Titanic).

As a director, he’s far from the worst one out there. He clearly knows what to do with his camera, and, it’s never that bad. But, as a writer, he has work to be done. Aside from the fact that he doesn’t exactly have the most original plot-lines out there (I’ll get to that shortly), his dialogue tends to be kind of rough, and his characters aren’t always the most developed.

Now, the plot. In some cases, his plots can be quite good (Aliens is an example of this, despite the fact that it is a sequel, so, technically it wasn’t all his idea), but, in the case of Avatar, this plot is (somewhat obviously) stolen from a few different movies. There are people (myself included) who sarcastically dubs this movie with the title “Pocahontas Meets Dances With Wolves… In Space!” and there is a reason why people do this. I saw a post a little while ago that had the plot of Pocahontas written out, with aspects (character names, places, etc.) crossed out and replaced by what it is in Avatar. Also, the general plot of a person going to a land unlike their own, and befriending people unlike their own (yes, I know this is a VERY brief plot-line, but, as I said, I haven’t seen it yet, so, I can’t go much further than this at this very moment) is one that has been done many times before.

Despite all this, something is clear: the effects and the visuals are groundbreaking, spectacular, and every adjective in between that can describe something of this caliber. From the minute I saw the trailer, I didn’t doubt for a second that this would win any visual awards that it is eligible for.

But, can a movie be judged solely by the visuals? Shouldn’t the acting, directing, writing, etc., all be aspects of what makes a movie great? In the opinion of a humble movie fanatic, I think that what makes a great movie depends on all aspects of the film, and not just the visuals. Just a week ago, this movie won Best Picture: Drama at the Golden Globe awards. This, I was admittedly not very happy with, because I know James Cameron’s writings, and I know the fact that this plot is overdone, and, shouldn’t a “best picture” be called “best” due to all aspects of it?

But, I digress, for the sole reason that I have yet to see it. I most certainly intend on seeing this movie in theaters, and, seeing that it’s been at the top of the box office for 5 weeks running, I don’t think it’s going anywhere any time soon. But, without seeing it, I think that this movie might be more than slightly over-hyped.

Keep on watching!

R.S.

Do you agree? Disagree? Post your comments and opinions below!

This entry was posted on January 23, 2010 at 7:23 pm and is filed under Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.