Movie Review: Avatar - The Biggest Movie Of All Time

Movie: Avatar
Starring: Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Sigourney Weaver, Stephen Lang.


For all the hype it is a pretty basic story Jake Sully played by Sam Worthington is given the opportunity to travel to Pandora and take his twin brother's place on a scientific mission.  He's working for a mercenary group sent to extract valuable energy producing minerals from the planet. There is only one problem for them the native creatures and people the Navi are hostile towards them. As part of the Avatar project Jake Sully enters this world through his Avatar body a cloned Navi that can be controlled by his thoughts. This way they hope to learn  more about the Navi and how they can get what they want from them. Soon though Jake doesn't know exactly who's side he should be on or where he really belongs.


Although this movie was hyped up as a SciFi action movie it really is not. While there is action and a climatic final battle most of the movie is about Jake and his journey as he becomes one of the Navi. Many have complained that this movie has too many thinly veiled messages about nature, war, technology, racism and the like. I find no problem with that whatsoever. Movies are stilled allowed to have messages aren't they? Although a bit heavy handed at times, I feel those messages were actually pretty while made. Most of the special effects of the movie weren't spent on battle scenes but were spent to create a believable alien world inhabited by strange yet familiar creatures.Which I think really makes the movie stand out from other SciFi films. The point of all this was to make people appreciate the nature here on earth and I think it did a good job of that.

Sam Worthington does a good job as the Avatar version of himself however in his human form he just seems dull and uninteresting. Perhaps they were trying to show how he really belonged with the Navi and not the humans but sometimes it just comes off as Jake being a boring character. Colonel Miles as played by Stephen Lang is suitable villain, an ex-marine who is determined to accomplish his mission he does not see the Navi as human beings but simply creatures to be exterminated. His motivations are not completely clear but he still comes off as a believable character. Sigourney Weaver gets stuck with the over zealous hippie scientist role that can be a bit annoying.

Overall I'd say that this movie doesn't really live up to the hype. How could it? It would have to be the best movie of all time even then it still might not live up to the hype. What we do have is a SciFi film that works well as an analogy and I believe it delivered it's message well. It also has ground breaking special effects to help make this world all the more believable. In 3-D the special effects really stand out. The last battle scene is really amazing. If there is one thing wrong with the movie it would be that for a simple story it clocks in at two hours and thirty minutes, a lot of that time is spent marveling at the world of Pandora. It works fine on the big screen in 3-D but at home on DVD it will probably drag a little. All in all if you haven't seen this yet then see it, at least you'll know what all the hype was about. You can buy Avatar on Blu-ray or DVD at our store.