Last night me and my boy Man-O-War Chris attended the midnight showing of the most important movie ever made (according to James Cameron): Avatar. But first, we stopped into Applebee’s for a beer. There are no bars close to the theater and all the liquor stores lock up around 11:00, so it was our only option. It’s fucking Applebee’s, so we thought it would be pretty chill and we could talk over our IPAs about movies we had seen recently. We were dead wrong! It must have been Bring Your Retarded College Freshmen to Applebee’s Night: conga lines, karaoke, and I’m pretty sure Gary Ridgway was sitting at the end of the bar. But yeah, Avatar.

Did the most hyped up movie of the year live up to its behemoth- sized expectations? Sort of. Pandora, the planet in which the movie takes place, is one of the most fully realized and beautifully detailed fictional worlds of all time. And Cameron allows Pandora to take center stage throughout the movie BUT in doing so, he sacrificed story. Anyone who has ever seen an action movie can predict every beat in Avatar. This story has been told countless times before in movies like Dances With Wolves and Enemy Mine and in books like Dune and the John Carter of Mars series. In case you’re not familiar with any of these, here’s the synopsis of Avatar:

Environmentally friendly animated film with a strong message that doesn’t club anyone over the head–but it certainly can’t be missed. Zak (voiced by Christian Slater) is a heavy-machine operator whose job is to push over any vegetation in his path. He’s shrunken to wee size, however, when Crysta (Samantha Mathis), a fairy of the forest, not only finds him cute but wants him to see the results of his handiwork.

Actually, that’s the plot of Ferngully: The Last Rainforest. But fuck it, same thing. Besides brandishing a rehashed plot, Avatar contains some truly miserable dialogue. The shitty, “hard-boiled” opening voice over by Jake Sully (played decently by Sam Worthington) made me LOL, but it wasn’t supposed to be funny. To my surprise, Sigourney Weaver (my favorite actress from Holes) gave the worst performance possibly of her career, as the head of a science group thingy. Not to mention what she looked like in avatar form…woof!

My friend Chris began snoring at the two hour mark, I smacked his arm to rouse him. I fell asleep shortly after. I woke up and went to the bathroom. Before the movie had run its 2hr 50 min, I had nodded off about four times. Seriously, there’s a good 30 minutes during the movie where it’s cool to have a little nap. G’head, you’ll feel great afterwards.

So that’s the bad and the ugly, onto the good.

(Above: the old man and James Cameron) For all its uninspired dialogue and story, Avatar is worth the admission price for Pandora alone. For almost three hours, you’re on an alien planet. I’ve never seen a  fictional world this detailed and with this much depth and scope. There were at least three times in which my jaw became a cliché and dropped. Especially during the final battle which was so perfectly executed and the definition of action sequence. You can tell Cameron had a lot of fun creating this world and, ironically, firing missiles at it. The 3D greatly added to the experience, and I even tried to swat away embers during one seen! It was pretty gay of me, hope no one saw!

In conclusion, go see Avatar. Just pretend you’re watching a kick ass travel documentary and dismiss the plot and those repulsive blue cat people.