It took me an hour to get over the slight sickly feeling that I had when viewing this with the 3D glasses. Whether this had anything to do with being colorblind or not I simply don’t know but it did detract from enjoying it for a while, having to constantly take off the glasses when the front of my head started throbbing aswell. I didn’t have the same problems with UP but I did get the feeling that the picture didn’t look right, as if there were something that I wasn’t seeing properly. I don’t get this problem from viewing a normal movie so I don’t know why I got it here–nonetheless I did get into the movie while ignoring my symptoms and for being what is considered the biggest movie of the decade this almost lives up to it. Almost.
The CGI is incredible. Starting with Gollum in Lord of the Rings, CGI had been getting better and more realistic and this movie has just broken that barrier. The nine foot something Na’Vi look real, no question, and the way that James Cameron has mapped the actors faces onto the creatures is just stunning. Some of the effects, such as the flying winged pterodactyl-things are stunning even if they are just colorful dinosaurs and the whole world looks real, with fictional fauna and trees that sway with the wind and are realistically effected by rain and other effects. CGI is now an adequate replacement for real life and despite that the real actors give some great performances, especially that of Zoe Saldana who has the task of playing an entirely alien creature, completely with fictional language and accent when speaking in English (it’s never explained how they know the English language, I assumed that Sigourney Weaver’s scientist teaches them it in return for teaching her their language but it never being explained is quite annoying) which is a great accomplishment; and she’s sexy as hell to boot.
It’s a great, fun-filled movie. Don’t expect an intellectual script, this is as bare-bones as it gets but a large script would have ruined the whole experience with too much talking and not enough jumping off cliffs from huge floating mountains while riding giant winged creatures and shooting arrows at the same time. Nobody does action like James Cameron and he outdoes himself here. Go see the movie, turn your brain off and just enjoy one of the most basic fun movies in a long time.
