Avatar

Avatar is an ultra-mainstream adventure movie for the whole family. In a filmmaking package so perfect it could give you an orgasm, James Cameron self-confidently delivers a super-hackneyed story that won’t surprise you with anything. Apart from his comedies (True Lies), Cameron’s films always contain a hint of existential food for thought alongside all that technical brilliance. But only a hint. They have ideas on which other filmmakers built their movie worlds. Avatar, however, does not contain anything of the sort, and its message begins and ends with a bit of simple ecological agit-prop. It is Cameron’s first film composed solely of things we have seen elsewhere (whether in his films or somewhere else), which he merely delivers in an even more elaborate and beautiful wrapper. Every shot, every cut, every tone of James Horner’s soundtrack contributes to the absolute perfection of the final product. But what good does it do when we always know what happens ten minutes in advance? (12/15/2009)

I do appreciate Cameron's dedication, which meant years of waiting for proper technology and the employment of two special effects giants. The result definitely marks a significant shift for cinema as a whole. Yet that's where the positives end for me... because then we get almost three hours of a shallow story (which could still be tolerated - okay, it’s a fairy tale), dull emotions, the most stupid military lines in history, and blue-green agitation so vigorous that even Greenpeace pales compared to it. The three-dimensional effect is great (Cameron knows how to work with space perfectly), but underneath the fancy tinsel I couldn't find anything more and about halfway through I wasn't even entertained. Sorry, but I was bored shitless with this film. Three stars from me. (12/20/2009)

Very, very intoxicating. What surprised me the most was that not only the eyes and ears experience an orgasmic throw. Personally, I felt emotion over the love affair between an earthling and a blue huntress, which I did not feel in the slightest when watching Titanic. Avatar is not just dazzling... it is alive. The film may have too much of the classic narrative schemes, but it doesn't matter, because the mind walks the familiar path and sight and hearing fly in the unimagined. There are probably many people who will point out things like activism, or that it is cold. I didn't see any of that in Avatar. Instead, what I saw was very light and brilliantly crafted telling of a romantic fairy tale about beings bound to their planet. Together with Star Trek, this year's clear winner in the heaviest weight category. [85%] P.S. I just can’t keep my mouth shut... I have a question:"A strange mixture of Moore's environmentalism, Zeman's poetics and Vinnetou's naivety "cut" with the aesthetics of The Lord of the Rings - does that mean Miloš Zeman, who embraces trees?" I probably haven’t seen as much from Karel as I had hoped. (12/15/2009)

Real... but incredible too. Cameron delivered all I was expecting and much more. He embellished this simple or fairytale story (a dash of Pocahontas, a dash of Beauty and the Beast etc.) with an incredible amount of ideas and details that take your breath away. Of course, I made sure to watch Avatar at the IMAX and I must say that the movie really was created for 3D with a screen as large as possible. Pandora plucks you like a raspberry (parallel with Jake) and you feel the new world in all its beauty and unknown secrets and you want more and you get more. Each animal is more fascinating than the one you met before and every shot reveals new image after new image that remains ingrained in your memory. Luckily Jim didn’t skimp on technique and so we get the best performance from everybody. Militant and reckless humanity (represented by the great Ribisi) for destruction lovers and on the other end of the scale the naturally sweetened Na’vi race for beauty lovers (all the talk about ecological agitation are wrong, nothing specifically stands out, it all creates a whole where questions of racism etc. are also dealt with). All of this forms into a wonderfully working story and a breathtaking experience. I can’t remember seeing anything as intense (and anything that acts on all levels) for a really long time. I just noticed that I didn’t write about the special effects at all. Maybe because they didn’t seem like effects. They seemed real. When Neytiri cried, I felt with her like with a real person, not like with a nine-foot clown. She looks that real. So it should be said here that the effects are of the highest possible quality (if they are revolutionary or not, you’ll have to ask an expert in the field), personally I was completely gobsmacked, and I’ve seen a lot of movies. Almost all the actors shined, but Sam Worthington really was the best of them all. The nice guy who guides us on this wonderful journey without a doubt deserves great praise. As does Stephen Lang. A proper baddy who reels out one tough line after another. All in all, it was worth the wait. I felt like I was dreaming with my eyes open. I see you... (12/21/2009)

A great adventure fairy tale for those of us who have been waiting all these months and years for it to come, and a grand spectacle that becomes so huge in the end that human senses cannot absorb everything and a regular director can't control it. And it is right here where it shows that giving so much time to a movie sometimes really pays off until the last minute and dollar. Although the compassionate ethnic-ecological message did not hit the mark in my case, everything else is part of an opus that has never been seen before. 90% blown away for a movie that will at least not have any equivalent on a global scale in its sequel. (12/17/2009)