REVIEW: Avatar

(yawn)

OK - I'll write more than that... But before I do, prepare yourselves for an onslaught of cinematic musings to come from my keyboard. And now, back to... Oh, right...

Avatar is not a great movie. It's not even pretty good. It's not good. It's also not awful, but clearly, that ain't sayin' much. Before I saw this film, I heard it described as The Smurfs meets Dances With Wolves (except with a 'happier' ending) and that's pretty much on the mark. Even the language spoken by the Na'vi reminded me of the simplified Lakota dialect used in Dances With Wolves. More than a handful of people I've spoken to before and/or after having seen Avatar began their praise of the film by mentioning the special effects and I have to say: Special effects do not make a film good - it's the story. It has always been about the story.

My main problem with Avatar is that it was generally uninteresting. I was bored watching it and was reminded of a quote by Igor Stravinsky when he first attended a performance of Wagner's Parsifal and reminisced, "Once more I withdrew into myself, but I could think of only one thing, and that was the end of the act which would put an end to my martyrdom."

'Nuf sed...