RayCarsilloWrites.com

Originally Published: December 23, 2009, on 1050ESPN.com (Now ESPNNewYork.com)

It is the most hyped movie of the holiday season with one of the most acclaimed directors of our time (James Cameron) and a $500 million dollar budget. Could it possibly live up to all this hype though or is it just a lot of bright colors and flashing lights?

The first thing I have to explain, due to many people asking me about how much money Nickelodeon put up for this, is that this is NOT the same property as the Nickelodeon cartoon of the same name! Nickelodeon’s Avatar will have its own movie in 2010 and it will be directed by M. Night Shyamalan. James Cameron’s Avatar has blue aliens and amazing visuals. Nickelodeon’s Avatar deals with monks who control the four main elements (earth, wind, water, fire).

Now that we have cleared that up, James Cameron’s Avatar deals with a human mining company trying to rip out special ore (imaginatively named “unobtainium”) from the crust of a jungle planet called Pandora. The indigenous people of this planet though refuse to let their land simply be cultivated or embrace the human culture that is being forced upon them.

In order to help bridge the gap between the two species, Dr. Grace Augustine (played by sci-fi staple Sigourney Weaver; if you want to have a successful sci-fi movie, you need Sigourney!) develops something called the “avatar” program where she melds human DNA with the alien DNA. The human who had their DNA harvested can then plug into the avatar body mentally via a machine that is safe back at the human mining colony.

This is where Jake Sully comes in (played by Sam Worthington, another sci-fi vet after his major role in Terminator: Salvation). His twin brother helped Dr. Augustine with the avatar program, but was murdered in cold blood and thus his avatar was left in storage. Since the avatar-human hybrids cost millions to cultivate, instead of throwing it away, the government contracted Jake due to his similar DNA.

Thus begins an epic, action-packed drama that really takes about 20 minutes too long to unfold and tries to cover up slow moments with some cheesy 3D special effects and a light show that would be too intense for most raves. Really, this was a very good movie, but it just dragged at a couple of points that helped shake you out of the world that James Cameron tried so hard (and spent so much money) to bring us into.

The South Park episode that summed it up as “Dancing with Smurfs” was very spot-on. This movie is basically the thought that a people who are one with nature are forced to leave their homes and fight against foreign invaders and their culture after bringing one of these foreigners into their fold and way of life. Instead of Native Americans and settlers though like in Dances with Wolves, it is blue aliens and humans.

The movie’s visuals were brilliant (and the creature that was a hammerhead shark crossed with a rhinoceros was awesome) and it should win a Visual Effects Oscar hands down. Anything beyond that would be a stretch and the fact that 7-10 Oscar nominations have been predicted for this is a joke. There was some good acting from those involved with a plot that has shown worth before with some simple twists and special effects to make it look new again, but this isn’t a ground-breaking feature film. Of course, with worldwide numbers, it should make back the $500 million dollar investment.

A visually beautiful film with a solid plot makes this probably worth a viewing in the theatre and maybe even a special edition DVD buy because it will probably have some sweet special features (it better with that budget), but I saw it once and that was enough for me.

James Cameron’s Avatar gets 3.5 out of 5 as a solid, but not special, movie worth one, but not multiple, movie theatre viewings.

-Ray Carsillo