3D Fraud make Last Airbender not only bad, but criminal.
The biggest failing of “Avatar: The Airbender” is not the bad acting, M. Night’s directing or scripting massacre of the popular anime story or the terrible martial arts choreography.
The real crime is the marketing of the movie in the 3D format.
I have complained about 3D effects being slapped on movies…most notably the recent Wonderland debacle…which tend only to make the movie darker and generally unwatchable in order to throw a couple of beach balls at the audience. I was worried that this would happen to Avatar, especially since the early trailers did not mention 3D.
However, “Avatar” does something even worse than this.
There was no 3D effects in the movie! The trailers were in 3D. The beginning title sequence and all the production houses’ logos had 3D. The credits had 3D. During the actual movie, none. I am not talking about effects that were really bad. I am saying that not a single fireball, ice ball or earth clod that came out of the screen. No arrows, spears or swords threatened the goggled eyes of the audience. Nevertheless, glasses were still required to reintegrate the separated colors of the film, which i s doubly annoying when you already have to wear glasses.
So, not only was this movie bad, but fraudulent as well. The studios, producers, director, special effects companies and the movie theaters should be sued for misrepresentation, false advertisement and anything else a smart lawyer can think of.
Are you Game? Coming Releases Put New Twist on Video Game Movies
Video game movies, as a rule, are bad. Sure there are a few exceptions like “Mortal Kombat” and “Tomb Raider,” but for every Lara Croft movie, there are a dozen Super Mario Brothers and Street Fighter movies that were so bad that they actually generated negative box office numbers when they debut. (Okay, maybe a slight exaggeration)
However, on the other side of the coin are movies about video games. Movies such as “Tron” and “War Games” are considered classics, at least among the geek crowd.
This fall, two new movies are taking a different spin on the video game sub-genre, and both look like they are going to be the bomb with audiences—that is one good flick that is going to be “the bomb” and one that is going to bomb.
GAMER
(Lionsgate, Rated R, coming Sept. 4) www.gamerthemovie.com
“Gamer” tries to be original by taking two classic sci-fi genres and twisting them together. They take the “future gladiators,” a.k.a. prisoners being used and abused for entertainment as seen in “Death Race,” “Running Man,” and a host of others, and rewrap it for the Xbox generation.
Kable (Gerard Butler) is a super soldier put on death row for the wrong reasons, and his only way out alive is to survive as a character on Slayers—a combat video game where players like Simon (Logan Lerman) have complete control over their living video game avatar. If Simon can win 30 games, Kable gets to go free.
While the premise pushes the boundaries of disbelief, the movie promises to be an action-packed shoot’em-up, directed and written by Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor, the mad men behind the action overdoses known as “Crank” and “Crank: High Voltage.”
Avatar
(20th Century Fox, not yet rated), coming Dec. 18) www.apple.com/trailers/fox/avatar/hd/
Geeks love a good “VS.” argument. Star Trek VS. Star Wars, Batman VS. Iron Man, Smurfs VS. Snorks. It doesn’t matter what the subject is as long as there are reams of background material, quasi-science and misunderstood references used in a single episode of a show that came out 30 years ago, geeks will pick a side and fight it out till the end.
James Cameron’s “Avatar” feeds on this hunger for geek battle between video game worlds. Now, it doesn’t come out and say it, but from looking a the trailer, this CGI/Live action blend (like “Beowulf”) takes Halo and World of Warcraft and sets them against each other.
Jake (Sam Worthington) is a disabled vet that agrees to travel to another world for a special project that promises to free him from his wheelchair. Using a strange merger of cloning and “Gamer” technology, Jake is put into the body of a blue skin alien that looks a whole lot like a Night Elf from World of Warcraft. He is sent to infiltrate the local tribe, falls in love with a native girl and then must help them fight off the evil humans in very Halo-like gear using only the primitive bows and arrows and pet dinosaurs.
Avatar's Alien Elves
This maybe too wild to be a big hit, and a lot is depending on the quality of the CGI work. Personally, if there is a Night Elf wizard dropping fireballs on the Master Chief’s helmeted head (or close as Cameron can get without being sued), then there might be a chance for this movie to live up to the hype.
Christopher Huff is a self-confessed and unrepentant geek who as been living, writing and playing on the Grand Strand for several years. You can learn more about him and his writing at www.piratejournalism.com. Comments can be sent to chris@alternatives.sc.
Movies to See: Fired Up!
I wasn’t too hot to see any of the movies that came out this weekend.
To tell you the truth, I was more interested in daydreaming about the upcoming Watchmen movie (March 6), than any of the meager offerings for this week. Heck, even that Streetfighter movie opening this Friday looked better, and we all remember how bad the first one was.
However, I had to choose a movie. I decided on “Fired Up” for two reasons. One was that while Tyler Perry’s movies are usually good, I just can’t get into this Madea thing. I am told it’s because I am not from the south, where every family has a crazy Madea grandmother or aunt. Well, I have some crazy aunts, but, nothing like that.
The second reason I chose “Fired Up” was because it is always more fun to trash a terrible movie than to write any kind of review about a mediocre one, and “Fired Up” had all the makings of a bad, bad movie.
First up, it is a “teens trying to get laid” movie, which is kind of refreshing in this day and age. We all grew up with films like “Porky’s” and “Revenge of the Nerds,” but those stories of teenage folly have gone out of style. While that might seem like a point in favor of “Fired Up” (or against it, depending on how seriously you take these movies), in the age of blandness that comes with PG-13 movies, half the fun you had in “Porky’s” or with the Nerds in the 80s would be nearly illegal to film in the current day. So, with “Fired Up” promising to be a watered-down teen flick, badness had to follow.
Secondly, well…it is a weird story. You have two high school football stars, Nick (Eric Christian Olsen) and Shawn (Nicholas D’Agosto) who decide that going to cheerleader camp with 400 girls would be more fun that going to Football camp in Texas. That sounds like some silly high school movie or sitcom episode, and you expect them to throw in some twist like they cross-dress for the whole thing, pretending to be girls, or to be gay or some such nonsense, but even the cheerleaders at the camp are well aware of their intentions. So, another refreshing point to the movie.
Of course, there is a love interest. Shawn falls for his squads head cheerleader, Carly (Sarah Roemer), who has a jerk boyfriend in college. Meanwhile, Nick pursues one of the camp’s instructors (Molly Sims). Of course, these stories follow the usual foibles, like having to work out their differences in time to beat the rival cheering squad, admit your inner poet and prove that the college boy is really a jerk to the girl of your dreams.
Pretty much all stuff we have seen before, and all of it heavily watered down because of the PG-13 rating.
However, there are some bright spots to this film, particularly the dialoged, which is very witty and entertaining. Maybe not entertaining enough for me to encourage you to go see it in the theater, but definitely entertaining enough to tell you to look for the “un-rated” version of the film that is sure to be on the shelves in a few months. I suspect there will be more to see in that version of the movie, and it will bring back pleasant memories of those teen movies of yore.
(Original written for the Myrtle Beach Herald)
About
“Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and start slitting throats.”
– H.L. Mencken
Direct Email: Christopher@PirateJournalism.com
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