Tuesday, January 19, 2010

“Avatar” again

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After seeing Avatar, I wrote a post essentially saying that the visual spectacle was predictable and ultimately left me a bit flat.  But because a few members of my family hadn’t yet seen the movie, I found myself sitting in the theater at Patriot’s Place in Foxboro once again, this time wearing 3D glasses.  I was sure that the addition of 3D into the mix would again leave me feeling exhausted (maybe even more so this time) by all the visual popcorn and again, somewhat underwhelmed by all the other things that you look for in film.

But that’s not the case.  This time I found myself more drawn to the subtleties in the story line (there are some, but not many), less annoyed by the clichéd references to the United States in the early 21st century, and not completely absorbed by the three dimensional rendering of planet Pandora and all its vegetative and zoological cinematic candy corn.

It was the acting.  Yes, I know… much of this movie was produced on computers, but the acting was top notch.  I was especially impressed by Zoe Saldana who took on the role of Neytiri (pictured above).  Zoe was mad, really mad, happy, scary, powerful, vulnerable and when the protagonist starts to fall for her, we do too.  So how does Hollywood give us movies made against blue screens with computer generated characters, yet provide for the full range of emotions and interpretation by a human cast?  This piece provides some clues.

Avatar is the future of movies.  I’m sure of it.  But only after seeing it twice.

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