Is Avatar the Real Deal?

Avatar's day is fast approaching. It hits theaters this Friday December the 18th, and I've gotta say that I'm excited. While I've expressed my skepticism over the past few weeks, I don't want it to be misinterpreted that I did not want to see this film and that I didn't wish it was as good as it was hyped up to be.

Currently reviews are pouring in, some from a few of the bigger critics out there; in particular, Roger Ebert gave it a perfect four out of four stars. At the moment while I'm writing this, Avatar sits at 91% on RottenTomatoes with 44 reviews already clocked in, 40 positive, and 4 negative. By doing the simple math, this trend means that we can expect Avatar to be one of the best reviewed wide releases of the year.

My biggest skepticism up to this point has mainly been the story. I've come to grips that the CG is what it is, I can't change the fact that I still am not as blown away with it as I was with the CG in say Star Trek, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, or District 9. While I don't think Avatar's CG is shabby, it was just so hyped, I was expecting a touch more, but the facial recognition of the motion captured characters is astonishing, even if the CG masking them looks just like the CG that I know from other films.

Regardless, I kept on saying that as long as Avatar had a good story, the CG didn't matter to me. Peter Jackson's King Kong from a few years back, I personally felt the CG was a touch lackluster, but the story made me completely forget about the technical side of things and just embrace the magnificence of the story. Perhaps Avatar is the same way.

The early reviews are making me want to see it more and more. From the sounds of it, the story might actually be up to snuff, and Avatar could possibly be the big event film that we have all been hoping for. While I have never been an obsessive James Cameron fanboy, I do like pretty much his entire filmography and I think he is a very talented filmmaker. You can say what you want about Titanic, but the first two Terminator films are still two of the finer action movies ever made, and it looks as if Avatar could join their ranks and possibly even beat the epicness of Titanic. The only negative reviews for Avatar at the moment have complained about the storytelling and the dialogue, saying it was just like the rest of Cameron's movies, so I guess if you're a fan of Cameron's work, there is nothing to fear here, which I have no problem with it personally.

While some are already predicting Avatar being big news at the box office, at the moment it's gonna need a huge surge in word of mouth to make the type of money it needs to make to possibly even reach Titanic's haul; they need a huge surge just to recooperate their costs on this film which is rumored to have been the most expensive film ever produced. Cameron just loves doing that, doesn't he?

At the end of the day, there's nothing I can really do except sit here and wait for Friday to roll around, then I will finally get to see Avatar. I hope it will deliver and be the film of the decade like I deep down want it to be.