James Cameron's Avatar is, in a word, an expierience, visually. Its plot could be stronger but it holds up pretty well. The story is about a paraplegic former marine named Jake Sulley who, after being worn down by life on 2154 Earth, accepts an offer to replace his murdered brother's position on the human colony of the moon Pandora. Since the atmosphere on Pandora is unbreathable for humans, the job includes using the brother's Avatar, a genetically engineered body that has the DNA mixture of a human and the ten foot tall natives of Pandora, the Na'vi. Jake's superiors Parker Selfridge of the RDA corporation and Colonel Quartrich plan to use Jake to gain the nearest Na'vi tribe's trust and persuade them to leave their home so the corporation can dig up an important resource, unobtanium, needed back on Earth. When Jake meets the feistry tribe princess, Neytiri, and falls in love with her and the Na'vi's way of life however, things get very very complicated. I first heard about Avatar several months ago and it sounded pretty interesting because I'm a sci-fi, action-adventure and fantasy kind of guy and I started watching James Cameron's movies. I thought they were pretty cool so that strengthed my reason to see this. The trailers and photos added on top of that. Finally, it opened and I got to see it. The opening visuals definetely grabbed my attention and kept me interested. While the movie started off slow, it slowly and effectively grew on me. It had wonderful characters, effectively and strongly acted by Sam Worthington and Zoe Saldana as Jake Sulley and Neytiri respectably, who I'll definetely watching for in the future, and of course Sigourney Weaver who's like the current female queen of Sci-Fi. Joel David Moore, who I had last seen in Dodgeball, was pretty cool too. Stephen Lang made a terrific villian as Quaritch and Michelle Rodriguez and the rest of the cast added strong flavor and meat and bones. The story, while most people would not say its original and by describing it as Pochahantas meets Dances with Wolves in outer space, works because James Cameron knows how to take a familair story and make it his own. Not to mention the amount of detail he put in the flora and fauna of the planet moon Pandora and even the human's technologies with ships and robots that made me, a wannabe filmmaker, completely overwhelmed as I don't think I could ever make a science-fiction movie that complex. If you saw my science grades, you'd know why. Still though, this movie moved me and completely fit my requirement for an instant favorite: a great cast with a strong story and depth filled characters with a mian lead hero that grows as he goes along on his adventure, a beautiful and tough, yet sensitive and gentle female romantic love interest, and effective supporting characters that help on the adventure. Avatar's definetely a winner and I can't wait to get it on DVD and I hear Cameron will make two sequels if this movie is successful. Overall, I give this film 4 out of 5 stars.
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