So some of you may have already heard about it, but there’s this new movie called Avatar, and Courtney and I just saw it. Well, OK fine, it’s not that new. And yeah, odds are pretty good that you’ve already seen it, what with everyone on planet Earth having already seen it at least a few times. Well, it took us a little longer than most, but we did finally get around to seeing it, and we both came to the same conclusion:

The look of the movie, the effects, the 3D – Amazing.
The plot – Meh.

Now, I’m not the first person to claim the movie’s story isn’t wholly original. And yeah, it didn’t feel all that fresh to me. The military guy doesn’t want to give diplomacy a chance? Shocking! The protagonist that used to just follow orders learns to think for himself? No way! The daughter of the tribe’s leader, who hates outsiders, actually falls in love with one? You don’t say! Every major plot point could be seen coming a mile away.

Not only that (or perhaps because of it), I just didn’t care all that much about the characters. They seemed awfully wooden and two-dimensional.

And why is it that so many movies have to end with these big, climactic, CGI-filled battles? Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, The Matrix Revolutions, both Chronicles of Narnia movies, and I’m sure there are plenty more.  I mean, I get it, they look cool, but after a while, they just seem kind of stale, and Avatar’s seemed to go on for…ev…er.

But I do have to say, the 3-D was pretty amazing. I’m sure if we had seen it in IMAX it would have been even cooler, but since we waited so long, there was no shot of that happening. Going through the jungle, as plants and bugs and things appeared on screen, I wanted to swat them out of the way. Which really says a lot about just how immersive the world was. I really get why so many people were saying that this movie could change the way we watch films. Although, I do think it should be pointed out that the so-called 4-D technology sounds a lot cooler, and that to me is more how I imagine the movie theaters of the future.