THR and Variety review Avatar

[tazber]

Posted: 12/11/09 at 6:45am

Rave? Floperoo? Click to find out

[StageManager2]

Posted: 12/11/09 at 8:17am

How come other countries get it before us? Don't Hollywood movies normally open domestically before going international?

[SNAFU]

Posted: 12/11/09 at 8:45am

From the trailers I have seen, I have zero desire to see this film.

[madbrian]

Posted: 12/11/09 at 9:20am

Someone on this board made a reference to the combination of Jar Jar Binks and My Little Pony. I don't know if I can get that thought far enough out of my mind to take this movie seriously.

Updated On: 12/11/09 at 09:20 AM

[StageManager2]

Posted: 12/11/09 at 11:01am

"Jar Jar Binks and My Little Pony"

LMAO!!!

I can totally see it, though.

[strummergirl]

Posted: 12/11/09 at 10:32pm

Thanks for the link Taz. But then I could not help but lose all focus in the top right corner over the fact George Lucas approached David Lynch to direct 'Revenge of the Jedi' in the early 80s. Now I am trying to wonder how different the trilogy and perhaps even the prequels would have been.

[TheatreFan4]

Posted: 12/11/09 at 10:42pm

[strummergirl]

Posted: 12/11/09 at 10:50pm

lol

I got dibs on many posters at the movie theatre I work at. The Avatar poster... eh. I prefer Wolfman and Toy Story 3.

[orangeskittles]

Posted: 12/11/09 at 11:31pm

I have a morbid curiosity in this movie, just because I can't fathom what a $100 million movie looks like.

TheatreFan, I loved that episode.

[TheatreFan4]

Posted: 12/11/09 at 11:38pm

$200M, skittles. Then of course there is all the marketing which DOUBLED the total to $400M.

This turd will sink to the bottom of the bowl.

[BDrischBDemented]

Posted: 12/12/09 at 12:07am

I would have thought the same thing, but isn't it like getting great reviews, for whatever that's worth? I still have no desire to see the movie, because the special effects just don't look that incredible to me and 3-D movies make my head hurt, but from the glowing reviews, there must be SOME appeal to it I'm trying to wrap my head around.

[TheatreFan4]

Posted: 12/12/09 at 12:10am

But there is NO WAY they will be able to get the $400M made back...

[strummergirl]

Posted: 12/12/09 at 12:14am

Budget was made public as 180 million british-pounds which any with a computer and just round up and get over $300 million USD.

Any here is Ebert's rave just in:
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20091211/REVIEWS/912119998

Watching "Avatar," I felt sort of the same as when I saw "Star Wars" in 1977. That was another movie I walked into with uncertain expectations. James Cameron's film has been the subject of relentlessly dubious advance buzz, just as his "Titanic" was. Once again, he has silenced the doubters by simply delivering an extraordinary film. There is still at least one man in Hollywood who knows how to spend $250 million, or was it $300 million, wisely.

"Avatar" is not simply a sensational entertainment, although it is that. It's a technical breakthrough. It has a flat-out Green and anti-war message. It is predestined to launch a cult. It contains such visual detailing that it would reward repeating viewings. It invents a new language, Na'vi, as "Lord of the Rings" did, although mercifully I doubt this one can be spoken by humans, even teenage humans. It creates new movie stars. It is an Event, one of those films you feel you must see to keep up with the conversation.

....

At 163 minutes, the film doesn't feel too long. It contains so much. The human stories. The Na'vi stories, for the Na'vi are also developed as individuals. The complexity of the planet, which harbors a global secret. The ultimate warfare, with Jake joining the resistance against his former comrades. Small graceful details like a floating creature that looks like a cross between a blowing dandelion seed and a drifting jellyfish, and embodies goodness. Or astonishing floating cloud-islands.

I've complained that many recent films abandon story telling in their third acts and go for wall-to-wall action. Cameron essentially does that here, but has invested well in establishing his characters so that it matters what they do in battle and how they do it. There are issues at stake greater than simply which side wins.
....

I have been always waiting to see this no matter what though I reserve my fangirl status for only Star Wars. I really haven't heard bad things though there are some in the media who, like with Titanic, wanted it to fail because everybody loves a good trainwreck.

[rosscoe(au)]

Posted: 12/12/09 at 4:41am

Got a ticket today for the first screening on Wednesday afternoon at 5.00pm ( australia time ) can't wait.

[StockardFan]

Posted: 12/12/09 at 7:38am

163 minutes? Now I KNOW I will never see this movie.

[CapnHook]

Posted: 12/12/09 at 9:47am

I will only go if someone buys my ticket for me. (That's a lie. Any movie getting Oscar buzz I try to see). But if the film weren't getting Oscar attention, I wouldn't see it. The trailers turned me off. I also was a participant in an online survey about the film. I screened an early cut of the first trailer and saw a couple of scenes. Looked predictable, nothing new, and unappealing.

[strummergirl]

Posted: 12/12/09 at 11:02am

Jar Jar Binks and My Little Pony are a little extreme. I heard Dances With Smurfs, and it definitely does parallel Dances With Wolves and basically all of Edward Zwick's filmography.

**SPOILER***

Cameron has already planned sequels, this movie will do well I think but not recoup, so I am guessing the next will premiere in the summer. It is almost an experiment, it is premiering this late in the year because of how long the process took with the CGI. I heard the trailers do not give the actual CGI justice, in fact it was supposedly rushed and not finished because producers just wanted buzz.

**END SPOILER**

Anyway, Michael Phillips also gave it a positive review. The only major media outlet who did not like the film as of yet was The Guardian.

Stock, if your family wants to go to the movies at this time I recommend The Fantastic Mr. Fox. 88 Minutes of pure fun.

[JohnBoy2]

Posted: 12/12/09 at 5:36pm

If it's so wonderful, why do the trailers looks so awful? I've no doubt it'll be a tremendous hit; but, even the trailer in IMAX 3D was boring, to me.

[strummergirl]

Posted: 12/12/09 at 5:53pm

Never judge a movie solely by its trailer. If the trailer gets you to see the movie it did its job. It is just simply a marketing tool. The trailer to Terminator: Salvation looked amazing but it was anything but.

[JohnBoy2]

Posted: 12/12/09 at 6:35pm

Well, neither the trailer nor Ebert's review (I detest STAR WARS) will get me to see it.

[Plum]

Posted: 12/12/09 at 6:36pm

Forget the trailer - I got sick and tired of Avatar promotion about a year ago. In sci-fi and other genre-movie circles it's been hyped to such a mind-numbing extent it's probably gone through the buzz-backlash cycle about five times already.

Also, I kind of have an instinctively bad reaction against leather-bikini-wearing blue alien girl love interests. *shrug* It's a thing.

[strummergirl]

Posted: 12/12/09 at 8:33pm

Plum you are right in the respect that movies in the sci-fi go through a severe buzz-backlash. I was on the backlash side of Star Trek, mostly because I could have done without the screwball comedy and have a little more character development for the villain and the same can be said about the latter Star Wars Trilogy.

Also plenty of films that get academy buzz themselves go through plenty of buzz-backlash- just last year with Slumdog Millionaire and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and retrospectively Cameron's Titanic and Forrest Gump. Nature of the beast.

Anyway I was going before any of the Star Wars comparisons (which is fine with me), I was going because of James Cameron's first motion picture in forever and I have this thing for Sam Worthington. I can survive a 168 minute long film if it is good.

My only issue has been from Cameron insisting how this is going 'to change the way you watch movies'. Pipe down, Jim! Let the critics declare that otherwise you wind about sounding like Brandon Flowers with Sam's Town.

[rosscoe(au)]

Posted: 12/15/09 at 3:26am

Less than 24 hours to go...I think I have been to the first public screenings of every film Cameron has ever made. This is my New Moon

[ErikJ972]

Posted: 12/15/09 at 9:33am

I'm a Cameron fan but was not impressed for the trailers for this. However, a couple of friends of mine across the pond saw it and they both described it as "mind blowing". So that made me go buy tix for opening night in IMAX 3D and now I can't wait!

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 12/15/09 at 10:49am

How come other countries get it before us? Don't Hollywood movies normally open domestically before going international?

Not always. I don't know who decides it or how it works out but sometimes movies premiere in other countries before they do here.