Having been turned away from the IMAX screens last weekend because Avatar was sold out, I was sure to book in advance for the same showing this weekend (Saturday 23rd). I had heard very good things about the film, both in the press and from a few friends who had been to see it, and I was excited to see what all the fuss was about.
I booked my tickets on the Monday, and waited excitedly all week until Saturday night came along. Sure enough, the IMAX screens were completely sold out for the screening again. So it was with an mix of smugness and relief that I wandered over to the ticket collection machine to collect my reserved seats. I had even splashed out on Premiere seats, such was my excitement at the forthcoming two and a half hours.
Before entering the screen, I picked up my usual large combo of salted popcorn and coke. Then, I waited patiently in the mini que to pick up my special IMAX 3D glasses. I sat in the comfy seat and pushed my actual glasses as far back onto my nose as they would go, before perching the movie glasses on the end of my nose, and then sat back to enjoy.
This was exciting. The adverts were all in 3D. It was new and fresh, and the audience seemed together as they experienced this new cinematic experience as one. As a movie fan it is always exciting to experience something new, and so far I was not being disappointed.
Then came the feature presentation. James Cameron’s, budget blowing, box-office beating, movie behemoth Avatar… and the disappointment started. Avatar is not the worst film I have ever seen. But it’s by far and away the most disappointing. Don’t get me wrong, the visuals are impressive, but there has to be more to a film than that, and Avatar fails to deliver on any other level.
The story has been done a million times before, basically. Only previous films have done it better, cleverer and less annoyingly than Avatar does it.
As soon as Phoebe from Friends’ brother started banging on about the mystical fuel source they were mining for on Pandorum which is called UNOBTAINIUM for Christ’s sake, I’m afraid I was gone. Unobtanium, was proving hard to OBTAIN you see, and the humans would need to shift the 8 foot Smurfs from their home tree if they wanted to OBTAIN some UNOBTAINIUM, which as I mentioned was pretty UNOBTAINABLE!
The first hour of the film moved so slowly, that when I checked my watch to see how much tripe there was left to stomach, I was shocked to find that only one hour had passed! I still had over half of this to go. I was seriously close to walking out…. In the film’s defence, the second half does briefly pick up, before the inevitable half an hour battle scenes which basically could have been lifted from any of the Lord of the Rings movies, or any fantasy movie for that matter.
As I said, Avatar is not exactly the worst film I have ever seen. Far from it. But in terms of cinematic disappointments, it’s definitely in the top one!
