Triple Bill Mini Musings: Laws, Victims, and Dictators...

Dredd:
What's it about?
A fresh attempt at turning the long-running British comic book Judge Dredd, from 2000AD, into a movie, after the not-exactly-great Sylvester Stallone version in the 1990s. Dredd and rookie Judge Anderson head to a mega block of flats called Peach Trees after a triple homicide is reported - however, in this crime-ridden 200-storey slum, they're going to be trapped alone together versus the MaMa gang who are pushing a new drug called Slo-Mo on Mega City One.
Who would I recognise in it?
Karl Urban, Olivia Thirlby, Lena Heady, Wood Harris.
Great/Good/Alright/Shite?
Scripted by Alex Garland (28 Days Later), shot by Anthony Dod Mantle (127 Hours, Oscar winning DoP), and directed by Pete Travis (Vantage Point), this fresh take on Judge Dredd is a welcome shot in the arm. Clocking in at a focused 95 minutes, the action comes thick and fast - not-to-mention blood-drenched - as blunt force Dredd and rookie try-out Anderson (a psychic) battle their way through a hellish skyscraper controlled by drug-addled miscreants. Parallels have been drawn to The Raid (tower block, bad guys, lots of arse kicking violence), but the two sit well by themselves and need no comparison. Extremely stylish (the Slo-Mo drug is realised on the screen in super-slow-motion that turns bullets ripping through cheeks into hypnotically beautiful moments), Dredd is sheer balls-out fun.

Click "READ MORE" below for more "Dredd" as well as "The Victim" and "The Dictator"...

2012 Films In-Review...

2012 wasn't exactly a bumper year for cinema trips. I used to go as many as thirty times in a year, but with the rising cost of fuel (it's a 70 mile round trip to our nearest decent multiplex), and the piss-take ticket prices, not-to-mention the devolving abilities of multiplex staff, I've reduced my cinema attendance to only what needs to be seen immediately and on the big screen. Otherwise, the money you would have spent on a cinema ticket can pay for half-or-most of a DVD or Blu-Ray (replete with extra content and available for repeated viewings).

Anyway, here was my 2012 at the cinema in-review:

Click "READ MORE" below for the list...

Final Destination 5: Single Bill Mini Musings...

What's it about?
Fourth sequel in the long-running horror franchise where death uses devilishly inventive ways of picking off those who escape his deadly grasp. A bus load of young business folk are off on a team building weekend, but when one of their number forsees a disastrous bridge collapse, he and a handful of his colleagues escape their grisly fate ... for now.
Who would I recognise in it?
Emma Bell, Tony Todd, David Koechner, P.J. Byrne, Courtney B. Vance

Click "READ MORE" below to see if it's any good...

Prometheus 3D (spoiler-free) review...

What's it about?
Ridley Scott directs this sort-of-prequel to his legendary 1979 sci-fi/horror masterpiece Alien, which sees a group of late-21st-century scientists working for the Weyland Corporation seeking the answer to the biggest question facing mankind - where did we come from? Following a series of star maps, the most recent found as a 35,000 year-old cave painting in Scotland, the crew of Prometheus (the white collars, compared to the blue collars of Alien) set down on LV-223 (not LV-426 as you might have originally expected from the teaserific trailers) and begin to discover who these giant human-like "engineers" were, and why they were stationed on this far flung planet. Naturally, things don't go all that smoothly for all involved...
Who would I recognise in it?
Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender, Charlize Theron, Idris Elba, Rafe Spall, Guy Pearce.
Great/Good/Alright/Shite?
Having inspired an onslaught of fanboy theories and discussion, the teaser trailers managed to re-arrange numerous elements of the film, only seen in snippets, to appear differently to how they actually come-to-pass in the film itself. It kept the mystery alive, but it could also lead to a few scratched heads with some viewers exiting the cinema a bit disappointed, or wrong-footed, by what they were expecting.

Speaking of expectations, try to ignore them. The idea of the 'DNA of Alien' being present in the film is indeed here - we are in the same universe after all - but the references don't come as thick, or fast, as some reviews curiously suggested, and indeed the plot is far more interested in exploring fresh territory. Big questions - the biggest of all - are asked routinely, and are mixed with deep moral and ethical outlooks. As David (the ship's android, played brilliantly by Fassbender) says to star-gazing scientist Charlie Holloway (Marshall-Green), how far are you willing to go? Such are the intricate and morally ambiguous discussions, and disparate intentions, of the main pro/antagonists.

Click "READ MORE" below to learn more about Prometheus, one of the most anticipated films of 2012.

Double Bill Mini Musings: Assembly, Assemble!

The Avengers 3D:
What's it about?
After two Iron Mans, a Thor, and a Captain America, Nick Fury finally has all the pieces in place to assemble his Avengers Initiative in order to defend Earth against Thor's dark-hearted adopted brother Loki, in a spectacularly huge superhero team-up flick.
Who would I recognise in it?
Robert Downey Jr, Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, Scarlett Johansson, Chris Evans, Jeremy Renner, Samuel L. Jackson, Tom Hiddleston, Clark Gregg, Gweneth Paltrow, Stellan Skarsgard, Cobie Smulders ... pretty much everybody, really.
Great/Good/Alright/Shite?
Joss Whedon directs (and co-writes with Zak Penn) this incredibly well-balanced superhero action extravaganza. It may be two-and-a-half-hours long, but it barrels along at speed. All the characters (most benefiting from their own individual movies prior to this outing) are given enough screen time at regular intervals so nobody is ever forgotten - even the action sequences manage to juggle numerous characters and points of interest deftly, thus keeping you fully informed at all times (Michael Bay, please take note, this is how you handle a multi-charactered action blockbuster). There is also a perfectly balanced vein of humour that runs throughout - going so far as to elicit real howls of laughter from the entire audience, that come along at the right points to break the tension when you're just about out of breath. The 3D also works surprisingly well (I didn't experience any of the redundancy or sheer darkness exhibited by the 3D on-show in last year's Thor), although the tech remains a gimmick that is almost entirely perfunctory. Speaking of tech, the use of CGI is constant, but never overwhelming or distracting - this is a big, ballsy, and brash action movie, but with an intelligent, well balanced script to back it up.

Also, having had zero interest in the two Hulk movies that were released in years past, I found myself really enjoying Ruffalo & Whedon's version of Bruce Banner/The Hulk. His first appearance is terrifyingly brutal, but he then becomes your favourite smash star who also commands the biggest laughs from the audience. The rest of the characters all have plenty to do and say too, so fans of the previous films will be well served here and, naturally, there will be plenty to look forward to in The Avengers 2. I knew I would enjoy this movie, but I didn't know I would enjoy it quite as much as I did - I had an absolute blast with it.

A note on the UK release - amazingly we got it a week before the Americans, but on the other hand the title was officially changed over here to "Marvel Avengers Assemble", which is the most clunky title they could have chosen. Plus, as if any Brits are dim-witted enough to confuse a movie featuring Iron Man, The Hulk, Thor, Captain America, Black Widow, Hawkeye, Nick Fury, and Loki, with an abortive attempt to adapt the famous British TV show (The Avengers) starring Uma Thurman and Ralph Fiennes. Marvel: kindly revert the title to The Avengers for the UK home video release, please. In short though - great flick.

Continue reading after you click below for thoughts on Bad Teacher.

Double Bill Mini-Cine Musings: Stoner aliens and Amber Heard in 3D...

Paul:
Compared to the comedic writing style of Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright (which is often intricate and fast paced in terms of call-backs, observations and references), that of Simon Pegg and Nick Frost (who co-wrote this action/comedy/sci-fi/road movie) isn't so much about intricacies. Rather it's more about a central concept - two British nerds (Pegg & Frost) go on a road trip across America's alien-related sights after their visit to fanboy central (the San Diego Comic-Con), and end up having to escort an alien - named Paul - to a certain site (kudos to those who figure out the loving reference an hour before it occurs) so that he can get home.

Where Paul shines are the characters - from Pegg and Frost's loveable duo of alien-obsessed nerds, to Kristen Wiig's Darwin-denying Creationist (whose entire belief system is exploded in one moment), to a certain sci-fi legend cameo that's damn good fun in the third act. In between it all though, for added enjoyment, are a series of cameos and bit-parts ... and then there's Paul himself, as voiced by Seth Rogen - possibly the most fun-loving alien ever on-screen.

While it may not have the wall-to-wall, frenetically-paced chuckles, guffaws, and gaspers of Shaun of the Dead, or Hot Fuzz, it's a movie that can't just be slotted into the comedy genre and left. It's as much a road movie as a comedy, and there's a decent slice of action, and sci-fi, drizzled on top.

It's bloody good fun, and I'm hoping that there'll be an extended cut for the home video release - because by the end of the film I wanted a little bit more of the little character moments and interplay that no doubt had to be left on the cutting room floor for the theatrical release - so we'll have to see what's what, but this is a definite DVD/Blu-Ray purchase no matter what.


Drive Angry 3D:
Using 3D like it's supposed to (shoving guns, baseball bats, skull fragments, and bloody stumps deep into the lens), this romper stomper of a genre flick is good fun from-the-get-go. It's not meant to be deep, so if you were expecting anything remotely like that, then you're a fool - it's clearly about muscle cars, guns, Nic Cage doing his badass thing, and Amber Heard in Daisy Dukes ... in 3D.

Speaking of which, even though the 3D is a bit of fun, I'm really starting to lose interest in it. It's not just the bloody glasses you have to wear, nor is it just the damned cheek of charging a considerable slab more on your ticket for 3D, but it's just how damn-near-pointless 3D is. If a movie is shit, it's shit, be it in 3D or not, and vice versa. 3D isn't necessary to tell a story either, far from it, so it becomes either unimportant or a gimmick - and neither path is going to mean it properly taking off.

Moving on though, Drive Angry 3D was - at times - a little disappointing. William Fichtner's "The Accountant" is a thoroughly entertaining baddie, but there needed to be more of him throughout, meanwhile all the Satanic Cult stuff wasn't as developed (and therefore not as interesting) as it could have been, so that all became a case of generic bad guy cannon fodder for the third act. What does work are the exploitation elements - the cars, the sex, the violence, and the black humour.

Compared to Lussier & Farmer's previous 3D outing (the underwhelming remake of My Bloody Valentine, also in 3D and also featuring genre icon Tom Atkins), this is a decided step up in all respects ... it's just a shame that the pacing and plotting faltered throughout, and that some of the dialogue seemed lazy ("I'm going to kill you" - intentionally ironic in its simplicity or not, such lines came off as damp squibs when the audience was all expecting a much more creative kiss-off).

The flick would at times have a real sense of purpose propelling it forward, but then it would inexplicably lose it from time-to-time throughout (times when I'd be waiting for Fichtner's scene-stealing Accountant to turn up). Indeed, the aforementioned Satanic Cult was the most undercooked element of the script, lead by a one-note bad guy, who was entirely trumped by, yep, Fichtner's grin-inducing Accountant-from-Hell.

So it's a mixed bag, but ultimately it gets a thumbs up from me because - several scripting and pacing faults aside - it's just a bloody good time. It is called Drive Angry after all, and features sexy cars, sexy chicks, badass dudes and pounding jolts of violence ... in full-on gimmick-driven 3D.

Quadruple Bill Mini Musings: February 2011...

Daybreakers:
Didn't fancy it last year in the cinema, but it was a decent watch on Sky Movies. The most impressive thing about the movie was the ideas proposed by the script - a society in which humans are an endangered species after vampires have taken over the world. The issues of blood supply running low, of capturing and harvesting humans for blood, of blood rationing, of vampire canibalism, and a near-future world that runs exclusively in a nocturnal fashion.

That was all very impressive and interesting, but it's somewhat skimped on in a 90 minute movie that has to hit certain basic plot points along the way to bash through the action. If it didn't have any thought put into it, it would have been a rather dull and generic action movie, but with the inclusion of a relatively complex society it was elevated to much better fare. It's just a shame it wasn't a much more thoughtful two hour movie that really explored the socio-political themes in far greater depth.


Stripes:
Having recently seen Meatballs, I understood certain references in shows like Family Guy - and once again with Stripes it's the same deal. It's not amazingly funny, and I'm not of the generation that would have been teenagers when this flick came out, however Bill Murray's comedy is timeless - and it's worth seeing just for that alone - plus you get earlier work from the likes of Ramis, Candy, and Reitman.


Coogan's Bluff:
It's an "offbeat police drama" - according to the Electronic Programme Guide - and I only watched it because of Clint Eastwood. I didn't much care for it, to be honest. There are some nice dialogue moments (such as Clint's Arizona Sheriff Coogan dealing with a New York cab driver), but it's not particularly dramatic, or exciting, or all that interesting. Plus the sexual politics are very out-of-date by today's standards ... so it hasn't aged especially well in that respect.


Piranha 3D (Blu-Ray):
I wasn't particularly interested in seeing this in the cinema - not least because of the jacked-up price of a 3D cinema ticket - and for the same amount of cash I was able to get the Blu-Ray, which features the movie in 2D as well as both Stereoscopic and Anaglyph 3D. I don't have a 3D telly, but if I knew someone who had one sometime in the future I could watch it over at their place.

As it is though I watched the flick in good old 2D - with a skim-through afterwards in Anaglyph 3D, which, let's be honest, hasn't improved as a technology in the slightest. Even in a darkened room the 3D effect was minimal at best, and just gave me sore eyes with the red/blue glasses. Perhaps the Stereoscopic version works better, but Anaglyph 3D - for sure - is still rubbish. In fact you can practically watch the Anaglyph 3D version without the glasses on as most of the time the layers are so close together there's barely any noticeable difference.

In 2D however it was an enjoyable, 1980s throwback-style romp. It's the sort of flick in which a CGI piranha regurgitates a bitten-off and half-eaten male member into the camera lens ... which pretty much sums up the approach this flick has to the subject matter at hand. It's not meant to be taken seriously by any stretch of the imagination, it's not supposed to be scary either - it's supposed to be lurid, funny, gross-out, and just a bloody good chuckle.

Richard Dreyfuss cameos as "a version of his Matt Hooper character from Jaws" at the very beginning, and indeed Christopher Lloyd resurrects his crowd-pleasing wild scientist schtick as a fish-fascinated pet shop owner. From the outset the flick is drenched in gore, nudity, and silliness - this is a movie custom made for six-pack home viewing with some buddies.

It licks along at a fair old pace too (the deleted scenes clearly being cut to keep the flick under 90 minutes, as they're mostly pretty good scenes in themselves), so it never outstays its welcome, and it all builds towards an end-of-second-act orgy of boobs, blood and gruesome gore at a marina party. It's an audacious, over-the-top, gag-a-second drag race through as many naked bodies and half-devoured limbs, torsos, and faces as possible - in no uncertain terms, KNB FX have royally out-done themselves on this flick. The gore is copious, entertaining, and endlessly creative - so you gore hounds are most definitely catered for here. In fact, it's the ideal teenage movie - chock full of sex, violence, and general daftness - I really enjoyed it as a 20-something, and I would have likewise enjoyed the hell out of it as a teenager.

Apparently a sequel is in the works, and if it's as good as this flick - one of the handful of worthwhile horror remakes out there (including The Hills Have Eyes, also directed by Alexandre Aja) - then I'll be there with bells on.

Tron Legacy 3D...

The original Tron was a very important moment in cinematic history. It employed the first use of computer graphics in a motion picture and inspired a whole new way of filmmaking - and included in the tidal wave of inspiration was John "Pixar" Lasseter. However, looking back on the original flick just recently, the script is a bit iffy. It's filled with cringey computer jargon that feels thrown in for the sake of it, and the plot - that essentially boils down to 'computer programmer's games are stolen by somebody who clearly doesn't look like a games maker at all, ends up regaining his intellectual property by accidentally ending up inside one of his creations, only to win and become the boss man' - wasn't all that great.

What was great was the world of 'the grid' itself, and that has been the reason for the enduring power of this out-of-the-blue 1980s milestone.

This sequel came as a little bit of a surprise on one hand, but on the other - considering the current, advanced state of CGI technology that the original movie set in motion - it makes total sense. What's more the plot is much more interesting than that of the first - even if certain areas could really do with some beefing up - being that it's essentially a son trying to find his father after a two decade absence.

Fortunately, after hearing a bunch of reviewers go on about a "disappointing plot", I was pleasantly surprised to find it actually much fuller than I'd been led to believe, albeit with some shading and definition left undone. However, Tron Legacy does two things very well - the looks, and the sounds.

Building on an already iconic look established in the first movie, Legacy finds us in a world of cool blues and threatening oranges - a maze-like world of neon glow and glassy surfaces. The visuals of the movie as-is are so strong in fact, that they totally over-ride the use of 3D. I saw it in 3D and suffice to say I barely noticed. This will partly be down to the overpoweringly good visuals of 'the grid', but also because you don't often get a sense of planes of distance - the very thing that provides 3D with its ability to make stuff poke out of the screen.

So despite disappointingly unnecessary 3D (the 3D previews were far better in that respect), the look of the Legacy clearly marks it as the visual experience of 2010 without a shadow of a doubt.

Moving on to the aural experience, and Tron Legacy boasts a superbly suited soundtrack from Daft Punk - something which has had the internet giddy with excitement since the announcement. The marriage of Daft Punk's electric orchestra sounds with Legacy's awe-inspiring digital vistas and cityscapes is perfect. Suffice to say that as soon as I left the cinema I bought a copy of the soundtrack CD.

So, all-in-all, it's a truly impressive and memorable visual and aural, with a plot that could use some extra shading - but which was nowhere near as flimsy as I'd been led to believe - and featuring solid performances from Hedlund and Bridges. Speaking of which, it's cool to see the elder Flynn after all these years, chilled out zen talk and all, with Hedlund successfully depicting a junior Flynn who is every bit his offspring, and every bit the modern day extreme sports playboy that you'd imagine he would have been all along.

I'm really looking forward to seeing this again on Blu-Ray ... in 2D. Here's hoping we get a quality package to go along with this thoroughly enjoyable techno-flick.

Double Bill Mini-Cine Musings...

Jackass 3D:
Looking back on the original three seasons of Jackass, it's pretty damn tame by today's standards. At the time it was hilarious and cringe-inducing, but the further you go, the further still you'll have to go to continue eliciting the same level of response from your audience.

Such is the case with Jackass 3D, and indeed the case with the previous entries. The first Jackass movie stepped things up a considerable notch and released the franchise from the constraints of MTV on American TV. The second took things into a considerably more vile, more painful, and more shocking arena - but an arena filled with more laughter than ever before.

Jackass 3D doesn't quite have the same impact of Jackass: Number Two, especially as many of the skits are re-heats of established themes and ideas, but then again there's only so many ways to hurt yourself and make yourself vomit. This might seem like an issue, but in the world of Jackass, it's cheeseburger charm goes down a treat anyway - it's almost like a victory lap. Some of the members are showing their age now, and the closing credits includes 'then and now' footage of all the key players. There's a sense of this being a family of sorts who have grown up together, and it's this vibe which keeps the Jackass experience fresh, and maintains it as the pinacle of the stunt show thing that dominated the 2000's.

More of the same, sure, but there are stand out skits - both of the slapstick and gross-out variety - that keep things moving along nicely. It was a pleasure to see with an audience too, with everyone roaring with laughter or gasping with grimaced disbelief in unison, however when it comes to the 3D it's a mixed bag.

The resurgence of 3D made for a no-brainer when it comes to this sort of material, but also because of the type of presentation often featured in Jackass, and how the technology itself works, you're really getting half of a 3D movie and half of a 2D movie converted (sometimes seemingly not converted at all) into 3D. Certain set pieces worked nicely in 3D however, and afterall, if you're into this kind of entertainment you're going to want to see it in 3D, even if you don't get everything flying into your face.

I look forward to seeing what the DVD/BR release has to offer in terms of cut footage. Apparently there was an awful lot of good stuff cut out, and I have to say that at times you felt like certain members were being short-changed during the flick, but even still it manages to hold together well enough to make for an entertaining old romp for those inclined and acclimated to this sort of fare.


Due Date:
Following on from last year's all-conquering comedy The Hangover, which had a rubbish trailer that didn't inspire much confidence prior to seeing it, comes Todd Philips and Zack Galifianakis - accompanied by RDJ and a funny-looking, self-abusing dog - in a Planes, Trains & Automobiles-a-like ... with a rubbish trailer.

Fortunately, The Hangover turned out to be really quite entertaining, even upon a second viewing, and while Due Date doesn't quite hit some of the sheer fun of the former, once it gets going after a somewhat slow first act, it really starts to cook with some properly hilarious moments. Perhaps the trailer was so rubbish because they - wisely - didn't overexpose the comedy and kept the big gags as surprises for the audience, which wasn't the case with Burke & Hare, which gave away its best gags in the entertaining promos.

The emotional side to the plot is more subtle, or perhaps less explored, than that of Planes, Trains & Automobiles, but instead the shock-comedy factor is turned way up. It's just a good slab of fun, littered throughout which are cameo vignettes that work to varying degrees of success, and while it's not got the infectious sense of chaos which The Hangover had, the two leads (and the dog) hold your funny bones in their hands throughout. Definitely worth a watch.

Avatar (in 3D)...

Introduction:

Straight into my Top Ten of 2009, and most likely my favourite film of the year, comes Avatar - in freakin' 3D as well.

The triumphant return of James Cameron has happened, and in 3D to boot with the biggest budget ever attached to a feature film - territory that isn't unfamiliar to JC, as he was both the first to break the $100 and $200 million barriers. To kick off, I'm going to address some of the up-front issues that have been incessantly talked about by the mass media (the extent of which is unfair and needlessly focusses on only a select few eye-catching things).

3D:

Anyway, to get them out of the way, let's first start with the 3D technology utilised in Avatar. I hadn't seen a movie in this new fangled 3D tech before - those clear-lensed plastic framed glasses that make everyone look like Buddy Holly - and indeed I was saving myself specifically for Avatar. I had a brief moment of pondering going to see My Bloody Valentine 3D, but soon came to my senses (indeed the film itself was pish, and unsurprisingly the original movie is superior). I'm pleased to say my eyes didn't hurt, nor did I get a headache, and there was no blurring to the image - only at times a sort of juddery look to some of the faster moving elements in the foreground. There'll be more technical words to describe and illustrate whatever that issue was, but they're beyond me ... fortuntely the few times that happened didn't detract from the whole.

So there we six were in the cinema, four of whom (myself included) had never seen one of these 3D movies, all thoroughly weirded out by the first jolt of 3D trickery - some advert involving a giant head thing with nuts (or something) flying through jungle. At that point I'll admit I did instinctively duck out of the way with not a hint of irony or mockery. Indeed, such trickery was throughout Avatar - but in a far more subtle way.

For example, holographic computer screens peering in at the edge of the frame, on-screen text, glowing seeds floating on air currents, or burning embers drifting through the shot (convincing enough that I almost started trying to swat them away before realising). As such however, these moments did cause an amount of distraction (especially with this being my first foray into 3D cinema going), but never enough to spoil anything I'm pleased to say.

Mercifully James Cameron (naturally) avoided such ludicrous 3D spectacles as poking anything and everything including the kitchen sink into the camera lens, and anytime a spear or machine gun lunged at us it was in a shot that would have been composed as such regardless of the 3D.

Is the 3D required the tell the story? Far from it, and it never will be. So it's really only there to add to the immersion, but again this isn't truly necessary as I've so often found myself fully immersed in 2D movies on a television screen. Indeed, JC's Aliens continues to leave me utterly gripped throughout when watched in 2D on a 20 inch TV. It's the quality of the filmmaking that counts, not the flashy gadgets on offer.

That said, in the case of Avatar, the 3D did help to add an extra layer of immersion that made visiting JC's Pandora an extra special experience. Seeing this movie in 3D was a treat in itself, and might possibly be a one-off for me. Do I want to see Pixar movies in 3D for example? Not really. The quality of the storytelling and the animation is what matters in a Pixar movie. Avatar was however, an exception, and while it will most likely work just as well in 2D, I was utterly willing to go that extra mile just for James Cameron.

The budget:

The next common issue to be gang-humped by the mass media is the budget. Yes, it's large - officially $230 million (with a further $150 million for advertising) - but so what? JC has broken budget barriers before, and he still is. Move on already, sheesh. The budget doesn't make the movie (well technically it does, because it pays for everything, but you know what I mean) - just look at Transformers 2. It cost a packet and it was stupid ... a guilty pleasure sure, but really, really, really stupid.

The CGI:

Next up - the CGI - sitting there watching Avatar I had a thought. What's the big problem with CGI that some people have? It has it's place, just as long as it's utilised correctly, and indeed with this flick it's totally necessary. Without CGI you couldn't make Avatar. The only thing that practical effects (like a puppet) has over CGI is that you just know that it exists in the same physical space at the same time as the actors. Indeed this can sell the puppet better than some CGI (especially the earlier stuff) which can look utterly pish. However, even a puppet is fake. It's materials cobbled together (with skill) to make something that doesn't exist. Similarly, the CGI work of Weta (who did fantastic work on the Lord of the Rings trilogy) is a case of just using a computer to make things that don't exist.

At times some of the creatures do look 'too CGI' (for example the Hyena-and-Panther-like creatures during one night-time ambush, which look rubbery in a CGI way), and you're fully aware that it's all a lot of CGI going on ... however, for the most part you buy it. You indulge your imagination - just like you'd do with a rod puppet, or fake severed limb. The world of Pandora and its military & corporate occupiers are mostly constructed from CGI, so it all works in the end. It's how this film is supposed to look - this isn't a case of chucking a bit of CGI into a live action movie. Indeed, this is more a case of throwing a bit of live action into a CGI festival.

Is this a bad thing? Not in the slightest - like I said, this is just how Avatar is supposed to look, and thus it works.

Further to the issue of CGI is the Na'vi themselves. When I first heard about Avatar, I was a bit "eh?" about the whole 10ft tall blue aliens with tails thing. Fortunately the more I saw the more I become invested in the idea, and by the end of the movie (indeed within minutes of being introduced to the Na'vi in the cinema) I was a true believer in the Na'vi. They felt real, even in the (wisely few) scenes featuring humans and Na'vi.

What sold it? The human emotion of those performing the parts. Indeed, the motion capture utilised in Avatar is a runaway success. These blue aliens feel like real beings, and being able to see the people beneath it all further adds to selling you the idea. Sam Worthington, Sigourney Weaver and Joel Moore's avatars all look the spitting image of them, and while (for me at least) Zoe Saldana's Neytiri looks less like their human counterpart than the others (perhaps because I'm less familiar with her, and she doesn't have Moore's distinctive features or Weaver's individual smile), I'm still utterly drawn into the eyes of her.

Neytiri is a fully realised being, a charming and attractive character - you can see exactly why Worthington's Jake Sully is stunned by her and ends up falling in love with her. You're along for the ride through the eyes of Jake Sully, and you can never quite take your eyes off Neytiri as she guides you through the lush world of Pandora.

Twitches of the nose, minute movements in the mouth, the movement of the eyes - in all of the Na'vi you can feel that there is something much more going on that just some flashy CGI. You feel like they're real. Mission accomplished, Mr. Cameron.

The story:

Some of the more sarcastic and derisive members of the press and internet public have snidely commented about Avatar as being 'Pocahontas/Fern Gulley/Dances With Wolves in space', or even a rip-off of that Delgo movie (or whatever it was called - an arsey little comment which makes no sense whatsoever when Avatar had been dreamt up long before it existed and was indeed shot and half-rendered by the time that flop was released).

Personally, I've never seen any of those movies, so the comparisons are meaningless to me. Indeed, they should be meaningless to the masses too. Orson Welles himself stated, when being lauded as an original, that all the stories you could possibly do have already been covered. He said that he himself was making stories that had already been told. Indeed, it's all about the way you tell the chosen story, and what you do with all the minute details.

What Cameron does with the story is tell it his way, and while you'll know most of what's going to happen long before it does, so what? It's a joy to see it happen when it finally does. That said, the 161 minute running time is a bit much on the respective arses of the cinema going audience, but it's a damn sight shorter than Titanic (with a stronger plot to boot).

By now you'll know what the plot of the movie is, so I won't bang on about that. However, is it bluntly told? Having heard the review by Mark Kermode I was expecting something that would bludgeon me over the head. Fortunately I didn't watch that movie. There are moments of blunt-as-you-like exposition which are, of course, necessary for the audience, but they're written in such a way that doesn't make an awful lot of sense for people who know full well what they're talking about. People who have been living on Pandora for a very long time. The epitome of these moments of bluntness is a scene where Selfridge (Ribisi) moans at Augustine (Weaver) about why they're there - Unobtanium (a silly name, no matter how you slice it) sells for stupid amounts of money per kilo. Sure, we need this info, but do tell us in a better way. But like I said, the majority isn't like that at all, even if you can predict the general arc of the story.

However, how many films can you predict the plot arc of? Countless numbers, that's how many, so why people are bemoaning Cameron for it is beyond me. Like I said, a handful of story types told in innumerable ways. The fun is in how it's told and what you see along the way; to invest in the characters and watch their story unfold.

I mean think about it, how many people out there in the real world are living exactly the same lifestyle as many others? Exactly. Get off your soap box and just enjoy the world James Cameron has invested himself in and presented to you.

Problems:

There are some problems with the film though. The odd line is eye rollingly in-your-face, particular the one about "shock and awe" and ultimately the one about having to "fight terror with terror" (or something like that) - since when were the Na'vi performing terrorist acts on the mining corporation?

The action, unlike Aliens or T2 for example, never gripped me like those movies did. I enjoyed the hell out of it, but I was rarely moved to the point of finding my fingernails embedded in the arm rests. Meanwhile T2 still astounds me, and Aliens still leaves me wide-eyed, fist-pounding and breathless. That little extra something was missing from the muscly thrust of Avatar, and so the action set pieces didn't pummel as I'd thought they would. Even the final barrage, which Cameron talked about recently, didn't grab hold of me and shake me like a rag doll. Aliens (again) on the otherhand, did so during the four big set pieces.

The depiction of the Na'vi as 'typically Native American' is a bit on-the-nose, I'll admit. However, it never bothered me personally. Although it does feel a bit 'stereotypically tribal' ... but you could also say that the bastards in the mining corporation (such as Ribisi's Selfridge) are stereotypically git-like with their 'flea-infested tree dweller' dismissals of the Na'vi.

Indeed the corporate-versus-nature allegory is also a bit on the blunt side. However (again), that said, I never felt pummelled by it (unlike how I felt by the blanket coverage of the recent Copenhagen Climate Conference cop-out talking shop). Cameron does succeed in winning the audience's hearts & minds in favour of Pandora and the Na'vi. We learn about them and their culture as Jake does, and as such we are (perhaps unsurprisingly) on the Na'vi side when the final battle comes around ... indeed on the positive side, dare I say it, I was a little bit devestated when the Na'vi are left to flee their home (a feeling much-inspired by Saldana's honest, gutteral, heart-broken wails of sorrow - all beautifully rendered in pitch-perfect CGI motion capture).

Colonel Quaritch is a kick ass character, a chest-thumping gorilla of a man, but he's annoyingly one-dimensional. It would have been great if he was even the slightest bit questioning of his own methods, or just had a different side to all his gut-toting. Even still, you can't help but feel a bristle of neck hair when he brazenly fires upon an escaping aircraft.

It's interesting, but in a movie where the minute details of the CGI 'emotion capture' are so important, there is a distinct lack of the minute details woven throughout the script. The motivations and feelings of the main characters are often glanced at, but never excavated and picked apart. If there was some more of that it would have helped sell the human side of the coin better. Fortunately the Na'vi are covered quite thoroughly, albeit mainly through Neytiri. It's understandable though that Cameron might have become distracted by this rich other-culture and alien people, but it is still a shame that the human characters were left out in the cold a bit. To have been a bit less black & white would have been nothing but positive, although with the overall plot arc it's hard to see how that could have been achieved.

Conclusion:

Despite cursory problems, the odd quibble, and a slightly flabby feel, Avatar was a great experience. I loved visiting the world of Pandora, realised in such loving detail by JC and his team, and no sooner had I left the cinema than I wanted to return. I wanted to feel the subtle use of 3D again, I wanted to get to know Neytiri all over again, and I wanted to see Jake learn to love Pandora again.

Avatar is a different kind of film from JC. You can see a shift in his mindset and the influence of his documentary projects. Typically James Cameron throughout (central love story, pioneering technology, powerful female leads, record breaking budget, masterfully crafted and designed in-film technology, and so on), Avatar is the film to see in 3D. It's a welcome return of Cameron, and while it was never going to pull in the box office figures of Titanic, it is easily a better and more interesting film (my relationship with JC's Titanic has been a rollercoaster unto itself), and is without a doubt worth your time and money.

I'm very much looking forward to the DVD release, and hopefully it'll be a features-packed extravaganza. I want to delve into Pandora all over again, and I want to see how it was all put together.

I think that about covers it ... for now at least.