James Cameron’s Avatar, currently has raked in approximately $1,162,361,307, making it one of the biggest movies of the year commercially, and with good reason, it has some of the greatest 3d special effects to date, amazing set pieces, an engaging story that makes you care for the people of the Navi, and, did I mention some of the greatest 3d Special Effects to ever grace the movie screen?

So why the fuck do I think it’s just “ok”?

What the hell? What wasn’t there to like? I mean fuck, that end battle sequence was brilliant, fucking amazing! The moment the Colonel hits the ground after jumping out of an exploding ship, I was amazed. That moment was equivalent to watching the doors open to reveal Ripley in the Power Loader suit, ready to rip the Mother Alien’s fucking head off. And all the time, creativity and care that went into designing the plant of Pandora… that alone is an achievement.

I saw this movie opening night. I had no real expectations, the initial trailer had first put me expecting a Jar Jar Binks War movie. Or something to that degree. The second trailer, however, gave me hope, it looked to have a decent story (which it did, in fact, it had to be my favorite part of the movie) and the CGI seemed to be a lot better than what was shown in the first trailer.

The very first scene where they reveal all the other Cryo stasis pods… it got me dizzy.. the 3D was something my eyes had to get used to… it was like my eyes were being raped by glorious 3D movie making. Shortly after, my eyes adjusted… and the movie never really stood out to me as “AVATAR: THE 3D EXPERIENCE”. I’m not saying that as a bad thing, as everyone has already said, Avatar’s 3d effects weren’t your traditional “coming at ya!” tricks, it merely added depth to every scene.. but I think halfway through, I started questioning myself… is this still 3d? Perhaps it was the gigantic IMAX screen, which I have known to hurt movies more than help (Quantum of Solace… fast cut action scenes are an utter mess to watch on such a gigantic screen) so perhaps that could be a factor. I also have pretty bad vision, so I need to wear glasses every time I go watch a movie, so I had two layers of lenses between my eyes and the screen… maybe fucking up the AMAZING 3d in the process?

Skip forward to the end of the movie.. the credits roll, the wannabe “My Heart Will Go On” credits song rolls.. and I’m not sure how I felt about the movie. I looked to my friend and said it was good, but with uncertainty in my voice. He looked at me and said “What the fuck is wrong with you? How could you see that and JUST say it like that?”

And at the time, I didn’t know the answer.

Skip forward a couple of weeks, I finally muster up the time and the patience to see the movie for the 2nd time. I had to figure out why exactly was I not crazy about this movie. This seems like something that I should be flipping my lid for. Going ape shit over the slightest mention of Avatar. As I sat in the same IMAX Theatre, I began to figure out why I thought Avatar was just “Okay”.

It’s a long fucking movie.

Once you’ve seen the movie for the first time, after you know the fates of Jack Sully, Gracie, Pvt. Vasquez and you are no longer discovering Pandora for the first time… a lot of the movie’s magic had disappeared. After you take all this away, it just becomes one long 3 hour movie with gorgeous special effects. Maybe it’s just being stuffed in a packed theater for 3 hours, brushing elbows with strangers, breathing the same stuffy air with the other 479 people in the room. I’m interested to see if my opinion about the length changes once I am able to watch the movie from the comfort of my own couch and TV. But until then, this movie too fucking long, and the most ridiculous thing is, I can’t think of anything in the movie they should have cut.

My next big problem with the movie was the music. None of the soundtrack really stood out to me… there was the scene where the creatures of Pandora finally attack back at the invading Humans, and the music used in this scene was bad, cliched, almost hilarious. It’s a bit hard to describe, but in general, a lot of the music in this movie was forgettable. Every classic movie has great music to accompany a great scene. Every great movie has that theme song that will always stick in your head well after the movie is over. This movie did no such thing. James Horner is fail.

Don’t get me wrong, this movie was good, but I think I’ll just need to just let this movie settle in or something. Maybe I just need to see it for a 3rd time.

Preferably at home.