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Avatar has stirred up the most hype I have ever come across with a film. Pre-ordering tickets four months in advance? Oh and as I recall the website pre-ordering the tickets crashed due to overload the minute the tickets went on sale. Damn!

The film was entertaining me before it even came out, but knowing a bagillion people already had tickets I decided to wait a few weeks to see this one.

Well after finally seeing it I can definitely say it didn’t disappoint. The plot was meh. Acting was on-par but nothing memorable and at times it felt contrived. The visuals and the sound, wow. This is what made the film a breath taking experience. For a good bit of the film you really were looking into another world. And with the illusion of depth I sometimes felt as though I could reach out touch the world. I literally had my arm up a few times thanks to the 3D illusion. The CG and… hell it all just looked real. The super high resolution of the imax screen gave everything incredible clarity, and the 3D effectively immersed you into this world. The colorful trees and animals didn’t seem gimiky at all and really looked like an alien ecosystem.

Every now and then objects did look like paper cut outs and a few camera shots had a paper flat non-3D look. Strange thing is the indoor military base portions of the film that were obviously real, looked more contrived than the obviously CG alien world. The alien forests seemed so alive and fluid they hardly resembled movie sets.

As far as the plot goes I know a lot of people can’t help but draw comparisons to Dances with Wolves, and how can’t they? It’s clearly derivative. The blue people, whom I think are called the Navi, strongly resemble Native Americans in every aspect except their species. The more unique plot devices make things more interesting. The concept of the Avatars is really cool, and the whole thing with the planetary nervous system was really fascinating, but all and all the story itself failed to draw me in and make me care about the central conflict.

Since this is a character driven story, character development should be my main plot focus here. This film got the job done. There were moments were the film drew me in and got me to care about the characters, but in the end theirs fates weren’t of my concern.

My biggest gripe with this whole film was that Sigourney Weaver’s character, Grace, reminded me way too much of Ripley from the Alien movies. Seriously other than occupations I can’t pick them apart. It doesn’t help that they were written by the same director and played by the same actor. At that point I wish she was more involved in the action, but since a choice was presented it wouldn’t fit her character, or should I say Ripley’s character to choose so.

So what keeps the plot going and the film engaging? Do you need to ask? The visuals and sound really do hold this entire film together. While the plot and characters may fail the suck you in, believe me the visual presentation damn well will! I told you enough times already how everything looks real. The camera perspectives were perfect throughout the entire film. It was always stationary or moving gently to let you take everything in. It was shaky when appropriate but not over done like recent action films. The action was intense all on its own. Though what may kill the action for you that is that it is painfully predictable. So much so that you can see the ending to this film before it’s half way over.