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Movies & TV

Avatar: a hi-tech Cats or the return of Jar Jar Binks?

You can’t judge a book by its cover, but can you judge a $200+ million movie by its trailer and an extended 3-D sneak peek?

Let’s hope not.

Yesterday Fox Studio revealed an early look at Avatar, James Cameron’s first major feature since Titanic made him the blockbuster king of the world 12 (!) years ago.

The film’s being released December 18, but the trailer came out Thursday and yesterday a 16-minute compilation of scenes, introduced onscreen (in 3-D) by the director himself, was screened for a bunch of critics and winners of online contests. They’re obviously hoping that the buzz that began last month at Comic-Con continues.

I’ll reserve judgement until the movie comes out. After all, this is the guy who made T1 and 2, Aliens and Titanic, four of the most popular and acclaimed films of our time.

But what screened on Friday at the Scotiamount – and at select IMAX theatres throughout North America and abroad – is a little underwhelming. Maybe the king o’ the world’s been holed up too long in his castle.

For one thing, it’s hard to get a firm grasp on the plot. It concerns something about a wounded soldier (Terminator Salvation’s Sam Worthington, exuding major star power) becoming a blue-green avatar to infiltrate a futuristic alien community in some jungle. Why? What does he want? Hard to tell… for now. Oh, and there seems to be some timely ecological message.

The animated alien jungle scenes shimmer and sparkle believably, and there’s lots of impressive 3-D depth. The exciting monster scenes bring to mind other movies: Peter Jackson’s King Kong, maybe, or even further back, films by stop-motion legend Ray Harryhausen. I mean that in a good way.

It’s the avatars themselves who will likely get the biggest criticism (the creature has already compared to Episode I’s Jar Jar Binks – not a good sign). They just don’t look… real. With their bluish skin and heavy-lidded, feline eyes, they kinda resemble chorus members from a high-tech production of Cats.

Apparently they were created using 3-D motion-capture technology, but there’s something jerky and video-gamey about their appearance. And why couldn’t the avatars resemble the actors playing/voicing them in a small way? It’d give audiences some sort of connection.

Let’s hope there’s also a human connection when the film’s finally released. Because in the end, for all the CGI and special effects involved in making a huge boat turn upside down or an alien queen disengage herself from her freshly laid eggs to seek bloody vengeance, it’s the pull of human stories that’ll keep viewers involved.

It’s strange. A few years ago, in the exact same theatre, I and a couple hundred people watched the extended trailer for The Dark Knight, which preceded a screening of I Am Legend. We were all thrilled.

It was a surprise that turned into an event. But this was an event that didn’t surprise.[rssbreak]

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