Dances with smurfs and wolves?

I'm sure you're aware already, but just in case:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dances_with_Smurfs

Just seen it. It’s a film that presses a lot of buttons. There is a whole lot of white man versus indigenous peoples stuff - so the whole Pochahontas / Dances With Wolves thing rings true. Given that Cameron has said that this has been kicking around his head for a long, long time, I am amazed that he didn’t see any of the afore-mentioned films and say “hang on a minute…” and try something else. That said, I did like the story and the way it went - but I agree, what it was was stretched to tolerance levels.

It looked stunning in 3D. I ponied up my £10 to see it at my local cinema. It was presented using Real D 3D, which uses a circular polarisation technique, so you can tilt your head and still get a 3D picture. This can, I understand, cause slight blurring with sideways motion, but it was tolerable. I was amazed at how well the 3D worked, given the shoddy trailers which did “in yer face” 3D. Avatar seemed to be more passive, and as a result was more comfortable to watch. Cameron has clearly moved on from the Ghosts in the Abyss which I saw as part of the Titanic exhibition at the Science Museum a few years ago. He’s clearly considering how best to use 3D, and Ghosts did more cheesy 3D stuff than Avatar did. Avatar seems a far more considered and mature piece as a result.

The CGI was amazing. I was seeing stuff that even Pixar seems to have trouble with: weight transfer when things or creatures move. I was actually convinced that things were genuinely touching other things. I was also unsure where CGI stopped and real things started this time. I take it that Sam Worthington is not really wheelchair bound - yet his legs seemed suitably withered and useless. CGI? Prosthetics? Hard to tell. Whatever they did, you could not see the join.

I watched this film and had to remind myself that this was the man who make Aliens with only six alien costumes to keep costs down, and managed to keep the whole base looking full of them. With this in mind, I feel that Aliens probably does more than Avatar for that simple reason: there was a tight budget. Cameron has so much cash to throw around now, that he is in danger of losing the skills he once wielded so skilfully. Aliens has very well defined characters, some very ingenious solutions using effects with real models - he could not just hit “undo” and reshoot a scene. Avatar may show that you can free up creativity by removing these constraints, but I would argue that it is those constraints that can make a better movie.

On IMDB Avatar has been rated as being in the top ten films of all time

And you disagree because. . . .?

Did I say I disagree?

The " " implied it.

It’s not the best, I’d grant that. Good, yes. Ground breaking - as far as CGI and effects go, yes. I bet he gets an Oscar nod for that bit. Story? No. It’s a well trodden path, that one.

No it didn't, you inferred it, incorrectly. I was rolling my eyes because IMDB always overreacts with the latest blockbuster. It's, for instance, ridiculous how the terminally bland The Dark Knight is rated higher than North by Northwest or American Beauty.

And completely unrealistic.

Oh I quite agree Paul. What irks me is people giving opinions on its worth without actually seeing it.

Based on your opinion after actually seeing the films? If so then excellent, you're getting the hang of it.

Now I'm obviously biased , but how can you possibly describe TDK as bland, especially compared to the films you've mentioned? It's overlong, but it's hardly dull or anything

I have seen enough in the trailers and adverts and inferred enough from the reviews to form a conciously fallible opinion as to the intended audience and overall significance of the film. I have come to the opinion that I would, in the words of Blackadder, rather have my tongue hammered wafer thin with a meat tenderiser and stapled to the floor with a croquet hoop, than pay money to see it.

Well...

Heath Ledger hams up a clichéd villain role with all the subtle nuances of a 10 megaton shell, his performance therefore renders 50% of the film, the bits with him in it, tedious (granted apart from the bit where he makes the pencil disappear). I love how people say films are 'overlong', it's the equivalent of saying "by the end I was bored". But bored is putting it too lightly, I felt like my brain had atrophied. When a film is good, really good, you don't want it to end even if it's been on for hours, Gandhi, Lawrence of Arabia etc. The characters in The Dark Knight are superficial, the action is sterile, the plot is predictable, it takes itself far too seriously and half the cast are wooden. Compared with the Jack Nicholson era Batman it is devoid of any style and flair, The Dark Knight has the mass appeal, and blandness, of a Big Mac.