Blue Man Group

On a whim, my roommate bought the Avatar extended edition on Blu-ray, which we decided to watch on that same day. As a person who watched the theatrical release in 3D, I didn't have much reason to watch this, especially since I thought it was just “entertaining, but not that great”. Since we had nothing better to do that night, we watched it anyway. Three long hours later, we watch the credits with more or less, the same opinion we originally had of the movie. One new thing I can say is that the extended scenes helped more than hurt the movie.

The visuals and world created in Avatar are by far the best things about this movie. Even without the 3D and the super huge theatre screen, Pandora looks very beautiful and vast. It really shows how much time James Cameron put into the environments. It's also one of the few CGI movies that doesn't end up looking too awkward in terms of animation and detail. As a result, I never really felt disconnected with the world.

The story left a bit to be desired, but I can understand why Cameron made it so simple. A thought provoking story combined with all the visual candy would be hard to absorb for the average viewer. With that being said, the story was straight forward and cliched. I'd hate to jump on the “Pocahontas in space!” bandwagon, but Avatar does blatantly borrow from other popular stories/movies. Fortunately (at least to me) the story wasn't really a flat out deal breaker in this case.

While I don't have the most favorable opinion of the movie, I have to say that the two people out there that still hasn't watched it yet really should. The visuals alone are just too good to pass up.