Saturday, December 26, 2009

Avatar



"I See you"

I gotta admit... I was awed by the trailer itself. I was moderately keen on watching this movie and so I did. Went in a few minutes late just to see Jake Sully arrive right on time for his 1st briefing.

The movie, to say the least, is superbly visually astounding. You can definitely tell a lot of thought has been put into the whole creative design of the inhabitants, the world itself, the concepts, everything, really. If my weed-damaged memory serves me right, I think it took the writer 4 years for the script to be done. Not that he was rushing or anything, but it just took that long until he was satisfied.

And man, those 4 years sure paid off.

You can definitely tell that James Cameron loves to put in some stuff from his previous movies… come on now, Sigourney Weaver and landmates? Aliens, anyone?

But still, it doesn’t mess with the story at all. The story, not groundbreaking, typical natives versus invaders set-up. Sure, there are countless stories out there that have similar themes, even on grander galactic scales but it’s not the story that entices people, it’s the way the story is told. I bet if you had watched a film on how the Malay kingdom defended itself from the invading westerners; you would’ve learnt a hell more than reading it off a bleeding book.

And that’s what contributes to Avatar being a great movie. The flow of the story. There are no pauses. Every scene commands amazement from the audience as Jake Sully and Neytiri walk about the lush Pandoran landscape, exploring their surroundings, startling unique and awe-inspiring creatures and plants as they go.

The battles are epic and pull no punches. Missiles, incendiary ammo litter the skies against the seemingly weak but deadly accurate arrows of the na’vi inhabitants that ride on their flying beasts while led by the new Toruk Mocta, Jake Sully, which is basically now their new hero as he had tamed the untamable beast of the Pandoran skies.

As negative as the next sentence may sound, the plot is predictable, but the flow of the story keeps us in check instead of giving us time to guess what is coming ahead.

Ol’ Spiky’s Rating: 5/5 – Another movie that will define our generation.

I’m off to KL tomorrow and then to Melaka. Happy Holidays people and a belated Merry Christmas!

Peace.

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