-"I SEE YOU"-
What's the fuzz and buzz about James Cameron's AVATAR?????
Call me old-fashioned or out-dated as you wish, but I simply don't get it! It's such a huge disappointment to me.
OK, I know it's been 13 years since his last cinematic output - TITANIC.
And even before that, as a writer/director, he never failed to impress the audience, with the blockbusters and masterpieces one after another, including the Abyss, Aliens, Terminator 1&2, and True Lies.
But Am I the only one who feel that he's losing his touch with the latest AVATAR?????
The story is simply simple and highly predictable enough with a well-calculated formula :
( Dances with Wolves + Pocahontas + Surrogates ) x ( Motion-captured CG technology ) to the power of 3D
Have anyone actually seen these 3 movies?
And Motion-Captured CG or 3D technology are mainstream in movie industry nowadays too!
So, there's actually Nothing new or original, at least nothing I've never seen before! (And did anyone feel the intense influence by Hayao Miyazaki's various works on James Cameron's AVATAR????)
People may argue that the special effects and action sequences are spectacular in AVATAR, which I won't disagree, on knowing the time and money they've invested into this movie........
However, since when do people care more about computer generated effects rather than the plots, characters and the acting? (Similarly, I hope in the field of classical music, people won't go for technique over musicality....)
To make it worse, it really bothers me after knowing that AVATAR earned 4 nominations from the Golden Globe, including best director and best picture!!!!!!!!! Keep my fingers crossed to see it miss all. I wish his ex-wife's Hurt Locker would win instead.
Come on!!!!! I would rather see the 3-hour-long yet remarkable Dances with wolves again and again, or the Disney's not-so-good 2D animation of Pocahontas instead of this soul-less AVATAR.
Honestly, Avatar is not boring overall, but it seems to be dragging and not quite entertaining due to its routine execution, mediocre acting, cliche plots, stupid dialogue, inappropriately overuse of voice-over, plus the over-dependency on the virtual visual and visceral stimulation...........(the last half an hour of continuing explosive actions did numb my brain)
In addition the HK$100+ ticket price is actually not worth it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
So, to summarize by using the mindless catch-phrase from the movie : "I see you, James Cameron, that you've run out of tricks and you're aiming solely for our pockets now!"
On reviewing the year 2009, the movie industry really sucked the big time.
That may account for the nominations of AVATAR after all, since not many good movies were worthy of seeing over the past year.
I saw very few movies as a result (my personal new low, perhaps), and even fewer that were actually good.
I carefully dodged the bullets of those shitty sequel blockbusters like Transformer 2, Harry Potter and the blah blah blah, New Moon, Wolverine, Night at the Museum 2, Angels and Demons, SAW nth, Fast and the Furious nth, Final Destination nth.......
In my humble yet subjective opinion, the good ones in 2009 which worth mentioning include:
Pixar's UP,
(500) days of Summer,
Slumdog Millionaire,
9 (I meant the 3D-animation), and
"District 9"
All are still sticking to my mind due to their originality, vision, freshness, inspiring and entertaining value at the same time.
And for sheer popcorn entertainment or big laugh, "Hangover", "In Bruges" and "Star Trek" all came up to my mind.
Sorry that I can't compile a top 10 list aimlessly like many religiously did, for there are really just this handful of movies that I dare classify as good and entertaining in the year of 2009.
Wish that around the Award season later this year, some really good movies would appear in HK.
