AVATAR:
James Cameron digs down deep and delivers a visually striking film with amazing use of CGI technology, creating a world that is captivating and beautiful. It’s a fully realized planet with it’s own evolution of life that connects each organism to one another on a level that is beyond human understanding. And with all these lush colors, fierce beasties, and extraordinary effects he still manages to deliver one of the single most bland film experiences. Despite, or perhaps because of, the huge budget and ten years to develop his “masterpiece”, Cameron constantly dips the script into one generic cliché after another in order to show us another pretty thing… floating mountains, dragon-like mounts, or local fauna that bursts with fantastic light and color. Prior epic films are pillaged for their emotional plot points. Vibrant lands are torn apart by future human technologies in order to mine some generic ore deposit Cameron saw fit to call “Unobtainium”, a legend regarding the taming of a fierce beast is told just in time for us to understand why the Deaux Ex Machina is supposed to be important, and the Princess tasked with teaching our “Hero” the ways of her people has got a prior hot-headed suitor who comes to odds with the main character. Some liken the film to Dances With Smurfs, but the pillaging of prior “epic” films only start with that point and move on through one film after another. Sigourney Weaver reprises her role from Gorilla’s in the Mist, hover planes right out of Terminator drop off the mercenary Marines bearing arms ripped straight out of Aliens, all while our hero narrates everything we’re currently seeing just in case there’s one person in the audience too stupid to realize what’s happening.
I’d like to alert you to some spoilers, but the whole film spoils itself at least ten minutes before any “major twist” that occurs. You’ve seen them all before, in the most basic Disney film to the most elaborate epic ever conceived. Braveheart, Furn Gully, and on and on and on…. Cameron beats us over the head with the “message” regarding the evils of military conquest and the way humanity will find any excuse to take what they want. Of course, it requires that we believe that “Unobtainium” is so unbelievably valuable that some corporate executive would completely ignore the financial opportunity of exploring organic telecommunication technology that the local scientists have discovered on the planet. The film is a two hour lecture on the evils of humanity, the wonders of the natural world, and the ability to spend $500 MILLION on the same technology that relies on the same evil ore mining, low wage part assembly, and unskilled craftsmanship to develop the machines that make it possible for “visionary” artists to trick us into thinking that something so beautiful must be an original and groundbreaking film.
3 out of 5.
Bloodlines:
In what I thought sounded like an interesting concept, an inbred backwoods cannibal family kidnap and torture young women by forcing them to compete for the dubious “honor’ of carrying on the family “seed”. One of their victims turns the tables on them when her brothers come to reclaim their “Baby Girl”, sparking a family feud between the two families. But where the conceptual idea of having two lunatic families go at it seems like a winner, the story itself is vastly generic as the girl and her brothers aren’t quite the vicious opposition they seemed to be in the films description. They’re really a rather average trio who happen to enjoy the out-doors and do a lot of hunting and fishing. The Lunatic cannibals are wrapped in cheap latex to sell their in-bred nature, and spend most of the film whooping, hollering, laughing, and ultimately boring the heck out viewers. The film seems like it wants to push the envelope in some scenes, but then pulls back from crossing too many lines by falling back on one cliché after another. It never lives up to the gory expectations of its opening scene, either. The film seems almost fit for “Lifetime” television, but for all the cussing and nudity.
2.5 out of 5.
Die, You Zombie Bastards
AKA: What the heck did I just watch? This little indie feature is a rock-a-billy trip through perversion, insanity, gore, and just about every twisted thing that refuses to grow anywhere near sunlight. A serial killer with a heart of gold dons the caped costume of a super-hero in order to save his equally psychotic bride from the vile clutches of a villain named “Dr. Nefarious”. The Evil Doctor intends to use his Zombo-tron to turn the world into his private army of Zombie slaves, mate with Redd’s wife, and do all sorts of other nasty things in this wild film that includes an amphibious guy, robots, werewolves, and Ninja. There’s something not quite right with the mind of a person who would make this kind of film, but it hits all the right notes and makes no apologies for what it is. I just have no idea what it really is… there are no compromises, no attempts to appeal to the main stream audience, and seems hell bent on flipping the bird to Hollywood. I loved it.
4 out of 5.
Laid To Rest
Stalked by a killer in a chrome mask and a shoulder mounted video camera, a young woman flees for her life with no memory of who she is or how she wound up in a coffin at the beginning of the film. She’s helped by a passing driver who takes her to his house, where the killer eventually chases them both all over town and kills many more people in order to take out his victim. The film is finely paced, the gore is spot on, but the film seems to be a little bit messy at times and logic takes a back seat to one kill after another in this fairly typical slasher film. Still, we get some pretty good moments and the films main characters are engaging enough for us to care about what happens to them and why the lunatic is continuing to hunt them down. We also have a few appearances from genre vets and fairly interesting twist near the end.
3.5 out of 5.
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