You know how there are some movies that you just have no interest in seeing, despite the fact that you like the genre and similar-looking movies?  Well, that is how it has been for me with Avatar.  Maybe it was the non-stop promotion insisting that I would like it or the incessant fanboy bellowing declaring me an idiot for even thinking about not seeing it or, heaven forbid, not liking it.  As the release date grew closer, I kept wondering how any movie could live up to the hype.

And if this were a normal review, I would tell you that Avatar did.

But this is not a normal review…

Rich talked me into going to see it in IMAX 3-D at Pointe Orlando (the only true IMAX in Orlando) on opening night.  A buddy of his from work had gotten a bunch of tickets and had a whole group going.  I agreed since this would be the best chance of me actually seeing it on the big screen.

For those that have been out of contact with society, Avatar is the story of a soldier who “inhabits” the body of an alien as a way to find weaknesses, but ends up helping the alien race he is supposed to hate.  Now if this plot sounds familiar, then you are alive.  It was the real-life story of Pocohontas and the big-screen feature, Dances With Wolves.  So that Avatar should really be named Pocohontas: Dances With Smurfs.  I can see why James Cameron hid so much detail of the story from the public – we would figure out that we had already seen it.

Now I will not deny that Avatar is leap in technology for movies.  Cameron did a good job with that.  But much like Lucas with the last three Star Wars movies, Cameron has spent so much time on the effects that the story suffers.  Sadly, based on the box office take, no one seems to care.  It might win Best Picture at the Oscars, which would be a blow to movies with an actual story and did not need effects to tell it.

My advice:  see it in a true IMAX theater with 3-D; if you wait until DVD/Blu-Ray, then you will hate the movie…