Avatar, the technically amazing, richly conceived and executed movie, will not be to everyone’s taste. It is tasty enough, however, to have broken all box office records, streaking to be the fastest movie to gross over $500 million, in only 32 days. Second place goes to The Dark Knight, which took 45 days, followed by Cameron’s Titanic taking 98 days. The “you-gotta-see it” factor is enormous. Even those who avoid big American films –including yours truly– are persuaded, and pay the 3-D marked up ticket price.
The visual richness and imaginative detail of Pandora, the moon/planet, the setting of the entire film, is simply astounding. The floating-in-space scenes as the humans approach their destination, unforgettable. The merging of human/actors with humanoid/graphics is seamless, especially when both seem to be appearing in the same sequences – an actor in an attack helicopter alongside an enormous computer graphics gun ship, complete with a mad man in command and troops with guns on the loading dock.
(more…)