Avatar

Finally got the chance to watch the much touted 3D movie Avatar.   This is the very first time this mountain turtle watched a 3D movie in his whole life.  It was fantastic, in terms of 3D imaging.  Ok, it feels like watching a Wan Hua Tong (万花筒) in my childhood days.  Everything is so vivid.  In one scene, the male character Jake touches the flowers.  The flowers look so real that I almost wanted to touch them myself. 

Story-wise, I must say it is not really that great.  It is a Rojak (meaning mixture of) of Matrix and Japanese director Miyazaki Hayao's  (宫崎骏) Castle in the Sky (天空の城ラピュタ).  The idea is not very original, but you can see similarities between Avatar and many other movies.

The movie is about 2.5 hours long.  For the first hour, it was plain chronicles of what the male character Jake got 'infiltrated' into the indigenous tribes.  Then the director did his best to portrait the ugly side of capitalism at its worst manner, and the use of military force in settling disputes at the capitalist's favour, and at the sacrifice of the innocents.  I highly suspect that capitalist and the army colonel embodies something in our real life.  It should not be hard to guess who they represent after the 2008/2009 financial crisis and the war on terror.

The last hour of the movie was the most exciting.  Lots of actions and the mood was tense, until the story ends.  It was also the worst hour for me, as I got the urge to the loo, but I didn't want to miss anything so I had to endure.  I was not the only one, judging by the popularity of the loo immediately after the show, and everybody spent a lot more time peeing than usually.  :D

I must say this movie is indeed a pioneer in 3D motion pictures, and hopefully in the future more 3D movies will come on screen.  The images are excellent, the scenes are vivid and life-like.  Sometimes I even moved my body to 'avoid' an arrow or a bullet!  Kudos to the producers of such a great movie.  Story-wise, something more original, that would be perfect. 

My rating: 4/5