Movies

So I saw Avatar today, in IMAX 3D.

There's a lot of hype around the movie, as you know, and a lot of people, such as myself have been skeptical. I realize I number among the few who waited this long to see it, but I will post this for those of you who haven't yet. To start, I admit the hype and power marketing made me feel really pessimistic about the movie. The content presented by the trailers just doesn't seem like an interesting story, and there is very little rationale provided for it being a good movie other than its "ground-breaking" visuals.

The reality of the movie is that, while motion capture has come a long way to avoid making CG models look fake, it still hasn't reached a point where every single motion can be considered completely realistic. There are moments that seem to lack tactility, although few and far between. I wish my eyes weren't looking for them with this pessimistic approach, because I think otherwise I could probably call this movie the best of the decade, along with the other thousands of people heaping praise onto it. In fact, my mother loved the movie, and we generally have similar tastes. She reckons my more active involvement in fantasy settings dulled my imagination a bit when it came to interpreting the movie's setting. I found myself much more interested in the plot, with the sometimes-headachey-3D as a secondary feature.

But hey, I did like it. More after the jump.

This weekend saw the premiere of James Cameron's long-awaited film Avatar. The film opened up to a whopping $73 million domestically, and $159.2 million from overseas markets. James Cameron wrote the script to Avatar in 1994, and held off further production until 2005, when the technology to fully meet Cameron's standards was available.

The movie industry expected at least $85 million from Avatar, however $73 million is not an upset considering there are reports from many theatres in the northeast that had to close down because of the snow, which FOX pointed out affected the intake.

In second this weekend is Disney's The Princess and the Frog, with $12.2 million, dropping 49.5% of its audience. The snow storm up north could also have factored into this low number.

The Blind Side comes in at 3rd, with another $10 million, and bringing the total gross of the movie to $164.7 million. The Blind Side opened up last month, competing against the monster that is New Moon. Overall, despite the competition The Blind Side has gained a great amount of intake and continues to do well, while its competitor drops farther farther.

So there's a sequel to Iron Man coming out next year, seemingly following the same tradition as the first movie: upholding the kickass and comedy of the Iron Man franchise. In fact, it was the first movie that rekindled my love for the world's most eccentric billionaire and sparked a deep-seated man crush for Robert Downey Jr. AND NOW, there's a trailer out! I'll embed the movie here once it makes its way to youtube, but for now, you'll have to enjoy it in HD at Apple's site.

So does the movie look good? Yeah. It sure does. A hell of a lot better than Avatar, too. They don't appear to be taking on the issue of Tony's alcoholism, which is good, since it could easily cloud the dramatic pull of the movie. I mean, if we're supposed to experience a villain who hates Tony Stark, then we should be able to love Tony Stark just as much.

AND NOW a list of facts about the movie. Jon Favreau is directing, and he made the first movie as well, so it's presumably in good hands. Scarlett Johansson is taking on the role of the Black Widow, another Iron Man staple character. Mickey Rourke plays the villain, Whiplash, with some impressively grilled teeth. Don Cheadle is taking over for Terrence Howard in the role of James Rhodes... kind of a random actor change, but probably motivated by a desire to star-stud the cast. The movie is set for release May 7th of 2010. Should be fun. Oh, and Paul Bettany is the voice of Tony Stark's personal computer companion, Jarvis. How awesome would it be to have Paul Bettany stuck in your head? Oh, right, that movie happened too.

So are you guys excited for this? Anything seem completely wrong about the concept to you? Think maybe they're holding back some crucial plot element (like alcoholism) that's going to totally change the appearance of the movie from this trailer?