Avatar

Avatar has more the feel of a summer blockbuster than a Christmas blockbuster. Nonetheless, I enjoyed the movie overall.

"Pandora" (the alien world) is simply spectacular on the screen. Very impressive indeed. Jake Sully's introduction to the Na’vi works well enough, although the story of an occupier going native is fairly trite and scripted by now, and there are no thematic surprises in the larger story arch there. Nonetheless, it wears just fine -- like a comfortable pair of well-worn slippers. The science of the Avatar is plausible enough not to be an impediment to the story.

I suppose without the action sequences at the end that the film would bring in a tenth of the revenue it is, and wouldn't be the big hit that it is. Still, the last forty-five minutes or so of the movie are boringly predictable, down to the "mano a mano" slap down between Jack Sully and Colonel Miles Quaritch. You'd think with all of the underemployed writers in Hollywood that filmmakers wouldn't have to recycle the same old stuff over and over again. Sigh.

Avatar is a fun action film. But while the current hype seems to have it as a shoe in for the "best film" Oscar nod, with the oh-so-predictable screenplay, I personally do not think that it should get within light years of the award.