Avatar Review

Today, I would like to do a brief review of James Cameron's latest film, Avatar.
As most of you know, Avatar is a movie about an alien world inhabited by blue people who are fighting for their own world against humans. Well that is part of it at least. I never like to give away spoilers, although most people have seen this film already.
When I first heard about this movie, I was confused between this Avatar, and the TV series Avatar, The Last Airbender. The airbender tv series is a great animated show with a very different theme from Cameron's movie. Both were announced as movies at around the same time, and with he same name. They are even both due out this year, although one has been in theaters and the other is due out in a few months. Regardless, the confusion over the name used to be a very strong thing, and still affects a lot of people. Just doing a search for "Avatar" in Google Images, you will find the first several pages dedicated to the tv series, not the movie.
Luckily, M. Night Shamalan, the director of the airbender film, has decided to change the name to simply The Last Airbender, which hopefully will clear up any further confusion.
Now on to the film.

I felt that I needed to see this film twice in order to get a full idea of the story, characters, and effects. Both times, I saw this at an AMC "IMAX" 3D screen. This is a great experience, which I could go on about for hours, but I will keep this very brief. In order to summaries, I will split this into sections: story, characters, effects, IMAX 3D, and finally quality and overall.

Story:
I have heard many people say that this movie is just a reenactment of Disney's Pocahontas, or even Dune. However I have to respond that it is not the same, and despite the strong similarities, there is another view. All stories borrow from other stories. Whether they are movies, comics, books, or whatever, there are no original stories. So while this may borrow heavily from other titles, it is still a unique aspect, and a well delivered story. And indeed it was well delivered, closing any loose ends, bringing together all the important and even some subtle bits of information into a cohesive ending. They did an excellent job of giving this story life, and of making it enjoyable from beginning to end. The main themes are universal and well understood, with a strong message that has been repeated many times lately. Our planet is a living thing and we need to treat it better. I do like the aspect that the spiritual and natural ways of the Navi are actually measurable scientifically. By using special neural connections in their hair, they can interact with animals, plants, and event he planet itself in way we can only imagine. The connections between all these living things physically embody the ideals of many of the American tribes, and give us even better reason to believe that these beings are not just pointlessly spiritual, but that they are physically and mentally connected to every living thing.
I have heard others say that even though this movie is roughly 3 hours long, it does not feel like it. And I agree. After we saw this film for the last time, it was already after 10:30 at night, and I could have sworn it was only 9. This may be so in part to the story, and in part to the effects.

Characters:
The characters are well rounded, 3 dimensional characters with a lot of development.  While the main character of Jake Sully starts off with a past, problems of his own, and even a family, the story quickly launches him into a world where we has no more family, no more goals, and just want to stick with what he does best, despite his lack of funds to allow him to be healed so he can fight again.  The changes that happen to him so fast in his life lead to him being the character we all have to associate with.  He knows little to nothing about Pandora, he has never piloted an "Avatar" before, and he open to learning just about anything.  It is this openness, and his skills as a marine (combined with the only way he has been able to walk and run in years) that has lead him to really engage with the Avatar program.  He must pilot a biologically grown Navi body.  It is this same openness and warrior status that drive the Navi to teach him their ways, and accept him, eventually, as one of their own.  That is all I will give away, since it is really the premise of the film, but I will say that many of these characters are strongly affected emotionally by the events and actions of the story.  The heir to the clan is of course skeptical and only wants to protect his clan, his people and planet, his position, and his woman.  But as he grows, eventually he too changes his views as events unfold.  The female lead here, a Navi flying warrior, also grows.  She is next to be the spiritual leader, and at first views Jake as an enemy, then as an annoyance, growing into curiosity, to a friend, and eventually lover, only to feel betrayed later on.
Even the character of the General in charge of the human forces is well designed.  He has one goal in mind, to protect his people while they mine for resources.  But in the end, his own tough attitude and power hungry ego gets the best of him as he wages an all out war not only against he Navi, but also against his people, and the man he once relied on for intel.  Even the head of the company's operations is a conflicted characters, not wanted to hurt or attack the Navi, but not understanding their view and forced to look out for the company's best interest as he sees it.
I must say that these characters are all multifaceted, with a lot of development and emotional connections.

 

Effect

Wow!  Amazing!  I can't think of anything as amazing as the effects in this movie.  The quality of the effects is astounding!  Every minute of the work that went into this film was well worth it.  Every frame is a masterful work of cinematic art.  But lets get down to it.

The effects are indeed drop dead gorgeous.  If the story and characters weren't also excellent, this movie would still have a chance on the graphics alone.  Granted, all these aspects are astounding, but none of them show off the quality of this work as well as the graphics do.  The characters interact so flawlessly, I can not for the life of me see where the CG begins, and the acting ends.  It is just flawless.  I feel that the best part about this was the outdoor scenes.  Every blade of grass, every leaf, every animal, every drop of water, mist, clouds, fire, everything is completely believable!  It is full of subtle details that really make you wonder how they could have done so much!  The characters are a close second however.  The Navi are incredibly amazing, with perfect details and animation.  The subtle emotions on their faces, the body movement, the way they balance on their feet, their tales, even the fact that the Avatar bodies (having human DNA mixed with Navi DNA) have 5 fingers while the natural Navi only have 4, are flawless spectacular details that I only dream about doing myself one day.  Even the humans are perfect.  Makeup on the colonel is amazingly good and distinctive, really adding to the character.  The actor Sam Worthington, who plays the main character Jake, is a healthy active guy who stars in many action movies, and yet here, he is a crippled human with legs that have dystrophy (weakened and unusable).  I am amazed at how realistic they made his legs look when you see him moving around with these 2 bony weak legs, like anyone in Jake's position would naturally have.  Amazing.

On that note, I did notice two, and only two things that may or may not have been there.  With my keen eyes and attention to detail, I noticed 2 scenes, fairly close together, where is something off.  The first is a scene when Jake wakes up in ashes (you know what it is when you see it), the arm band he wears is black with little blue stones in the center.  However, without any interaction from navi or humans in between scenes, by the time he is landing before the people on his newly acquired "ride", he has a cyan beaded armband.  Why would be go change armbands, and how?  Still, I might have overlooked something there.  The second issue is actually in this same scene.  As he approaches the clan leader, the look on the leader's face is priceless (mouth agape), but it is also a little off.  This one is a graphics issue, which I have noticed twice now.  The lighting that shines onto the face of the leader doesn't look quite right in the area of his mouth, almost like too much light is getting into around his teeth.  It almost looks like he has a CG glowy mouth, but the rest of him is real.  Now it could be that it is an artifact of the light shining into his face, and is at just the right angle to make it look this way, but it did look off to me.

Regardless, if these are the only problems that I could find, then I have to say it is by far the best CG I have ever seen in my life.

IMAX 3D

 This film was presented in IMAX 3D.  In the AMC screen I went to, this is not the IMAX format screen, but an IMAX brand screen.  Therefore it is NOT the full sized IMAX screen and you may actually lose information due to this.  What I mean is that some movies, like Dark Knight, and Transformers 2, use select scenes to fill an IMAX screen, and present an amazingly engaging scene.  But the IMAX format for these traditional IMAX screen are very square, and very large, at a 1.44:1 ratio.  In fact, the average traditional IMAX screen is 72 ft × 53 ft, while the largest is 117.2 ft × 96.5 ft.  Typical films use 35mm film, while IMAX films use 70mm film.  Regardless, the AMC IMAX screens are not even close to this.  However, they are very impressive.  One big disadvantage of the traditional IMAX screen is that any seat that is not in the ideal spot can be downright painful to watch a movie in.  I have seen several films this way, where in one I was so far off to the side that I got very bad neck aches, and in another I was so far to the front I got awful eye and head aches as well.  This screen is still very high quality, and does not have this problem no matter what seat you get.  Luckily, it is a good experience in most seats.  The IMAX quality is still there, although, like I said, not in IMAX format.  This means it is not a 70mm film, not is it a 1.44:1 ratio screen, and is probably not as wide either.  But I would still say that this is an excellent experience to see.  These screens are high, high quality, and have sharp detailed images with no distortion, no noise, no dirt, nothing.  A flawless presentation.

The 3D, aka stereoscopy, was impressive, but more subtle than I would have liked.  There are 2 planes for 3D films.  The back plane, where the stereoscopy happens "behind" the screen, and the forward plane, where the effect is in "front" of the screen.  Really good movies try to utilize both, to great effect.  Downright bad movies focus too much on sticking out and can really give you a headache trying to focus on the action.  However, this movie focuses more on the back, pushing the effects into the screen.  Instead of seeing the flying reptiles hovering over the front row, you see him on the screen, while the background goes way back into the distance.  I like this for the reason that it presents itself more as a film, and less as a gimmick, and lowers the amount of headache complaints.  However, as others have told me as well, I think it should use a little more of the forward plane than it does.  I does indeed use the forward plane, and to good effects, but usually for minor foreground objects like debris and floating seeds.  It brings you into the scene this way, but I feel they could have pulled a few things out a little further to really show off the 3D.

That being said, I will say that this subtle 3D style is perfect, and looks amazing.  You get so used to it, you hardly even realize it is there after a while, you just get used to seeing it.

OVERALL

 Finally, the overall quality of this film is perfect.  You can not find a better presented film with better effects, better story, or more memorable characters than this.  The amazing visuals really bring in the audience, who are then taken by surprise by the amazing story to go with it.  Everything from the grand outdoors scenes, to the subtle details and movements, to the lighting and color, this movie is as good as it gets!

I can not give any movie a higher recommendation than I give this one.  A+++!!!  If you only see one movie this century, Avatar is the one to see.

Well that about raps it up.  Again, Avatar is an amazing movie worth seeing multiple times.  I can't wait to get it on Blu-ray, and by the time this film hits 3D in the home, I may just have to upgrade my system again.

If you have already seen it, see it again!  If you haven't, GO SEE IT NOW!

If you really get into the story and world of Pandora, check out this great book, Avatar, An Activists Survival Guide.  It shows a lot of things you didn't notice, teaches you things about the world you didn't know, and is a fun book to just pick up and flip through.

Review of Monsters Inc.

One of the items you can always find on my holiday and birthday wish lists are Blu-rays.  For those who don't know, these are the DVD-like discs that play movies in High Definition.  Where a DVD has up to ~9GB, a Blu-ray has up to ~50GB, allowing for better image, better sound, and better extras.  It also uses more interactive features, including the pop-up menus, picture-in-picture, games, and even web content, to name a few.  The image is usually very sharp and amazing, the best in the market to-date!


Well, one such title I recently watched was Pixar's Monsters Inc.  For this review I will cover 2 different aspects of the release, the movie itself, and the Blu-ray.

MOVIE
What an amazing movie!  The story is unique and fun, playing on the idea of the world of the monsters that live in your closet, and how they are more afraid of you than you are of them.  The main characters, Mike and Sully, are employees at the Monstropolis power plant.  Their power?  Children's screams.  They must frighten kids in order to power their city.  But when one monster tried to cheat on the all-time scare record, a fearless little girl, dubbed Boo, playfully waltzes into their world, where children are thought to be toxic!
This is a great movie, with lots of fun characters and surprises, and a story that really impresses me.  The characters are well-developed, and grow to care for the child they once thought to be deadly, and set out to make sure she gets home safely, even if that means they can never see her again.  I have seen this movie several times, and I still feel for these characters.
The comedy throughout the movie is spot-on.  With plenty of slap-stick, and a number of visual gags, kids will love this movie.  But there are also a number of jokes only the older audience will get (or at least appreciate), leaving most of us with something to really chew on.
There are some pretty dramatic scenes as well.  While most of the monsters are funny, cute, or even cuddly (Boo calls Sully "Kitty"), there are a few that might be too scary for little kids.  There are also a few scenes that get very intense, including the great door chase at the end.  However, I think these make this movie really spectacular.  The visuals are stunning, and colors are bright, and the setting is fun.
I highly recommend the movie to everyone who still has a little kid in them.

BLU-RAY
The Blu-ray release itself will be split into different categories, including Video, Audio, Extras, and Overall.

Video
The video on this movie is stunning!  The characters show more detail and subtly than I remember in theaters.  The colors are bright and stunning, and the dark levels are good and even through the whole movie.  The image is so good, in fact, that you can see the fine details that give away how old the movie is.  Sometimes the lighting doesn't bounce off the image just right, or the shadow doesn't quite work right.  However, this is a very minor thing and is something I would like to stay in the movie, since it shows, in-part, the evolution of the medium.  To have created a main character with long detailed fur was really pushing the envelope, and to have pulled it off so well is very impressive.
Speaking of fur, this leads me to the one aspect of this film that kept hitting my eyes like needles.  Sully's fur is detailed, and colorful, and aliased.  All the fur on this shoulders (i.e. the long bouncy fur) is aliased through most of the movie.  It can be seen in screenshots, but even more so in the animation, as movement creates an effect that makes it stand out even more.  I am sure MOST people will not notice this problem, but eagle-eyed as I am, I cannot avoid it!  I promise not to point this problem out to anyone I invite over to watch the film, as I am sure they will not see it unless I point it out.  My eyes just go right to it, and stay there the rest of the movie.  I am not sure if this is a resolution issue, a rendering issue, or a source issue, but whatever it is, it is a distraction.  I hope this is merely a rendering issue.  I am sure the HD is high enough resolution that it should be a problem there, however it is possible the rendering technique is not detailed enough to pick up the small hairs smoothly with enough anti-aliasing.  If that is the case, they would need to scrap the HD source they made, make the proper adjustments to the files, and re-render everything!  I doubt they will be willing to do that, and I would be surprised if someone in their staff didn't notice this.  It is probably something they figured would be a minor glitch no one would notice, but I hope that someday they fix this issue.
That being said, I want to say that besides this small aliasing artifact, the rest of the movie is amazing!  It IS still worth a Blu-ray release just for the video.

Audio
But the audio is even more impressive.  They remixed this movie with a Home Theater 5.1 surround sound mix, using lossless compression, for the highest quality sound.  Every sound is accurately depicted and well placed in the sound field.  The range is impressive as well.  You have some scenes where the voice acting really moves the story (and what great acting it is), and others where the sound effects and the music really take over.  The musical score is another hit, with a song by Randy Newman, and a score that really fits well with the film.  The voice acting is perfect.  They got a wonderful cast and a lot of great interaction between them.  The sound effects really take the cake though.  You can really hear the work of the foley artists who created them, and can really appreciate the amount of work that went in to adding the sounds of their world.  One scene is particular is very impressive.  The door chase scene is full of large sounds, from the booming of the factory, to the powering up of the doors, and, of course, doors closing all around you.  You can pinpoint where the characters are exactly on the sound alone.
That being said, the English version is in full quality, but also included are DVD-quality French and Spanish versions.  It is interesting to note that the animators actually made a few minor adjustments to the video to better fit the language.  For example, in one scene, Sully is trying to get Boo to go to sleep.  He uses his hands to visually act out the words, resulting in a bit of humor as well.  In English he says, "You go to sleep" while he points at her for You, then shows his fingers walking for go, followed by holding up 2 fingers for to, and then puts his hands by his head like a pillow and pretends to snore for sleep.  However, in the other languages, he does not hold up 2 fingers, but instead waves 1 finger. While I cannot figure out EXACTLY what he is saying in each language, it makes sense that 2 fingers would not translate well.  I am very impressed that they actually have these changes on the Blu-ray release.

Extras
There are actually 4 discs in this set.  That's right, 4!  The first is the movie on Blu-ray, with everything in HD.  The second is an extras disc, which should all be in HD, or at least mostly.  The third is the DVD copy of the movie, so you can watch it on-the-go, or on the computer, or anywhere you don't have a Blu-ray player.  I love this idea, cause it not only helps persuade people to buy into Blu-ray, but also gives them more value for their money.  The fourth disc is the digital copy in SD, which allows you to put the movie on your computer, and even your iPod/iPhone.  Another great idea, since this helps fight the idea of piracy.  People complain they want to watch the movie on the metro or bus, or on a trip, and that they need it even more portable than a DVD.  Now that excuse will not work with a digital copy.  It allows you to watch the movie on your computer, on the train, on the plane, anywhere you can fit your iPod/iPhone.  Obviously this won't stop pirating, but it is a step in the right direction.  Even I have made copies of DVDs before, although I only copy movies I own, and never give them out.  I use these copies as backup and to watch foreign DVDs on my PS3/iMac when they are the wrong region (somewhat less of a problem with Blu-ray).
I have not gone through the second disc yet, but I can say that the first disc has all the basic extras from the DVD, as well as a few new things, including a tour of a new ride in Disney Tokyo, where you can play flashlight tag in the streets of Monstropolis.  There was one thing, however, that was not on the first disc that I spent a while looking for.  At the end of most Pixar movies are usually gags that they like to play during the credits.  While I don't recall there being any in the movie Up, I know that Monster's Inc had both gags and a fake play Mike and Sully were using as an excuse in the movie.  They actually acted out the events of the movie in a low-budget play (CG of course) for their company.  Only, there was no singing and dancing at the end of the movie, no gags or jokes, and I could not find them on the disc at all.  I did find the short Mike's New Car (which is hilarious), and also the short that played before the movie in theaters, For the Birds, but no company play or gags.  However, it has come to my attention, thanks to my friends over at www.Blu-ray.com, that both the gags and the play are indeed on the second disc.  But you'd think they would put these regular extras on the first disc where most people will look for it
The 2nd disc advertises that it has a 100 door challenge, with 100 mini games, a factory tour, banished concepts, "and much, much more".  I have not gone through the second disc yet, but I do plan to look at it soon.  I may (or may not) update my review with the content from disc 2 at a later date.

Overall
The Blu-ray itself is impressive, but not the best by Pixar.  The aliasing issue on Sully is a distraction that seriously dampened the experience for me, but I think I can overlook it.  It is still an amazing release, worthy of a Blu-ray, full of detail and color, with amazing sound and loads of extras.  I give this a 4 out of 5 stars, due in part to the aliasing issue, and the misplaced gags and short.


That does it for my review for Monster's Inc.  This is an amazing movie, with touching scenes, adventure, and lots of comedy.  If you have a Blu-ray player, add this to your collection!  If you don't have a Blu-ray player, what are you waiting for?