Julia Slaughter

I am going to try not to say anything spoilerish, but I can’t make any promises…

In July at Comic Con I saw 25 minutes of James Cameron’s Avatar and I was hooked, when asked later why I was hard pressed to come up with anything more substantial than “it’s pretty.” I didn’t mean that in a girly way I meant that I was looking at a completely rendered world and it was beautiful, colorful, and textured in such a way that made it seem completely substantial.

After months of waiting I finally got to see the movie, and I saw it with an odd assortment of people. There were those who were ardent in their fever to see Avatar, those who were apparently caught up in my excitement, and those who had the “misfortune” of being married to people who fell in one of the first two categories. At the end of the movie, we were all believers, and it was the first time for me in recent memory that we found a movie that we all liked.

I feel like there’s nothing I can say about the special effects of this movie that haven’t already been said – the movie is stunning, the special effects are amazing. The Na’avi were so beautiful and so realistically rendered that I often forgot that they were rendered, the 3D was used subtly – it added to the film, it never took away from the movie by doing any of the silly gimmicky 3D tricks. All of the technology helped submerge you into the film and enhanced the story.

I am shocked by the reviews that have taken issue with characters and plot.  I loved both. I really felt like I was swept up in the main character’s perspective, what started as alien and sometimes intriguing turned into something beautiful.  At several points I found myself so absorbed in the plot that I had tears in my eyes, and it was only through well placed humor that I was laughing instead of crying moments later.

I admit there was nothing about this movie that I didn’t like, and I had even expressed concerns to coworkers abut the length. (The film is 2 hours and 40 minutes long, so when you add in 20 or so minutes of previews and commercials, I knew I would be sitting in the theater for three hours.) I’ve always agreed with Alfred Hitchcock that “the length of a film should be directly related to the endurance of the human bladder.” However, when the film was over I couldn’t believe that there wasn’t MORE film! It was the fastest three hours of my life.

If you haven’t seen this movie, if you aren’t even sure that you want to see it – go and see, consider seeing it in 3D if its available. It’s not just a movie, it’s an experience that no one should miss!