Avatar Review Part 1 – 3D, CGI and IMAX

So I finally got round to watching Avatar on new years day in IMAX form at a 22:30 showing (yes I know but we can come to that another time). There were many parts and issues about this movie that my review is split into 2 parts. In this first part I’m gonna talk about the 3D and the tech used.

There has been alot of hype about this movie with statements coming out like. This is going to change the face of movie making and it will finally bring 3D movies into the mainstream. The 3D issue has been long debated on Simon mayo’s film reviews with Mark Kermode regularly over the past year as more and more films come out in 3D and weather there is a place for it in cinemas. They have talked about it costing more which the cinemas claim is because of the glasses that are given away, but when people bring them back they are still being charged the premium which isn’t fair. There has been the theory of Mark Kermode who believes that it is a gimick and is only a ploy from the movie industry to reduce movie piracy as he has yet to see a 3D movie that enhances the experiance having watching both 3D and 2D versions of some of the movies. My own experiance of 3D is resonably limited due to me being more than a little naughty when it comes to watching movies but the only other 3D movie I had seen before this was a IMAX Space documentry narrated by Tom Cruise which I felt was quite impressive as going around the international space station with things floating around the place really added to the experiance but the motion was quite slow but static so I felt if this was used in real movies it may not transfer as well as things are so much more high paced and there is not as much oppertunity to enhance the experiance and with the movies that have come out in 3D there hasn’t been anything worth taking alook at till now. So did I think that this was the movie to blast 3D properly into the mainstream? Unfortunatly not! I’m not saying there was nothing that enhanced the experiance but the parts that did were limited to the training with the natives in the forest of pandora which considering how much was spent on the movie and the amount of detail that was used you will not get many movies around that will do that and then will only do it justice for 10-15 mins in a near 3 hour movie. It’s a little hard to prove because I have only seen the 3D version of the movie but a believe a 2D high def version will be more than good enough because there is alot to marval at in this movie but it’s not the 3D.

The CGI and what I’m assuming is motion capture technology is exceptional. The previous bar to measure on this is what was used in the Lord of the Rings trilogy with Gollum and to be honest Avatar moves this into the next level. The amount of detail is staggering. I’m not sure if there have been great advances in CGI technology or just the clear and precise vision of both the director and the artistic team is getting the most out of the technology but whatever it is they have done they have again taken it to the next level.

My biggest dissapiontment was that this movie was not properly shot in IMAX. I’ve seen both the dark night where 5 scenes where shot for IMAX and Watchman which was all shot for IMAX and there is going to be a next level in cinema real IMAX shot movies have to be the future because watching big blockbusters on a screen the size of 2 double decker buses on top of each other greatly enhances the experiance for me and will happily travel a good distance even for a late time to catch a showing rather than get my hands on it in more dodgy ways. Hollywood really does need to stand up and rake notice otherwise they will fall into the same trap that the music industry is now. It’s now up to them to step up, but will they. I guess only time will tell!

January 4, 2010. Tags: Avatar 3D CGI IMAX. Movies.