Avatar - a review

Finally, I had to join the bandwagon. When people started asking me these million dollar questions, I had to oblige. “Have you seen Avatar, it’s a great movie, you must watch it, and remember watch it only in 3D. You will be amazed.” Add to this, all the social networking sites I go to were flooded with messages saying the same thing. Frankly I am not a big fan of these movies, I like the old ones filled with emotions and I am a great fan of director Bala. That must tell you something about my taste. People have already started telling me that I am getting old for the new generation, still listening to Ilayaraja songs, not knowing how to play video games and doesn’t understand the difference between a PSP and an XBOX. So, here I was, trying to decide whether I should go for the movie of the year or the decade. Finally, I decided that I will give it a shot. I shelled out 600 bucks for three tickets and waited for the D day to arrive. In between I had to persuade my three year old son to allow me to watch. I had to do this, since during my last attempt at a 3D movie, “Monsters vs Aliens”, I had to literally stand outside the theater, since he didn’t like me wearing those glasses and didn’t like those cartoon creatures. This time though, he behaved better allowing me to watch the movie. Now coming to the movie, I was quite amazed by the spectacle that unfolded in front of me. This was a visual spectacle and nothing more than that. The storyline is as thin as a wafer. In fact we have seen this story innumerable times in Hindi, Tamil and English films as well. Human race as greedy as ever, trying to get hold of unobtonium (frankly, I thought James Cameron could have come up with a better name for the rock, Goldanium could have been apt given the skyrocketing price of gold :)). Creating Avatars and trying to persuade the Navi race to give that up. Then the hero turns the savior. Then the usual story of how the evil loses to the good. For a movie with a thin story line, the length of the film is unusually long. After some point in time the initial awe gives way to boredom. This is not to say that the movie was of no use, but the director could have concentrated a little more on the length and the story line. Probably, this film was not to my liking (and age probably), but has transformed me as a cine goer. For example, as I initially said, the visual spectacle that unfolds in front of you in incredible and that too in a 3D environment, the experience is amazing (for the lack of superlative words). As a normal cine goer, this film has transformed me and I am not sure, whether I will be able to accept anything less than a visual spectacle in future. I know this is not possible since most of the tamil films I watch have not really taken off in terms of using technology. My rating – 3 out of 5 (I know this is kind of stupid and you will laugh at me for saying this on a film which has grossed $1bn in revenue so far and expected to sweep the Oscars). But, I feel that good films are not those which create an aura around them, but those which create an impact which will be difficult to come out of for at least three to four days after watching them. Sadly, I did not have the same kind of experience with this. But as my friends say, I think too much while watching the film about the loopholes and that’s why I am not able to enjoy them. Probably true and let me see another film to check whether I am able to enjoy it without thinking too much about it.