Robert_90

Few films have filled me with equal amounts of anticipation and dread as Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. The anticipation came from the marriage of an intriguing premise and a director that had shown immense promise through having a hand in some of the best comedy of the past 10 years. On the other hand, the over-the-top style and hipper-than-thou vibes looked to be a double-edged sword that could bring the whole thing crashing down in bright computer-generated flames.

Let's get the plot out of the way - for those who haven't heard anything at all about this, the titular character is an unemployed musician living in Toronto who ends up meeting the girl of his dreams one night. As he gets involved with her, he discovers that she has a hell of a past - she's left behind "seven evil exes". For no adequately explained (or particularly necessary) reason, they each come after Scott and engage him in ludicrously over-the-top battles. In between fights, Scott still has to deal with the various ups and downs of his relationship and how it affects the rest of his life.

Right, let's move on the film proper - well, those feelings I mentioned in the first paragraph? By and large justified in both respects. On the good side, stylistically the film is sublime. Despite having never read the source comics, I still enjoyed the film's heavy-handed usage of comic-book conventions such as visible sound effects, split-screen panels...the works. That's going without mentioning the copious references to videogames, whether it's the subtle use of sounds from other games or the blatant references to such things as getting lives or winning points. The visual effects are also top-notch, going above and beyond expectations with colourful clashes and blistering battles. If nothing else, Scott Pilgrim looks a million dollars.

Now comes the bit where I follow up a paragraph full of earnest praise with a little bit of honest criticism...while the film is great visually, I'm not really a fan of everything else about the film. Michael Cera does his usual "awkward goofiness" schtick, while most of the other cast deliver undemanding deadpan performances. On the other hand, the hamminess of the exes comes close to making up for it it.While I don't deny that these different styles genuinely fit in the right sequences, sometimes it gels and sometimes it doesn't. The same goes for some of the references that the film tries to jam in, especially one scene that parodies a certain popular sitcom that really isn't quite as funny as it should be. I could probably rattle off a list of the stuff that falls flat, but I'd probably have to list the stuff that didn't as well, so the non-action sequences are something of a mixed bag for myself.

If you're familiar with any of Wright's other work, this will definitely amuse you to one degree or another. If you're not, well, I daresay all the promotional materials give you the right idea - it's a fairly lightweight romantic comedy plot wrapped in a few layers of unbelievable fantasy and cooked to a crisp. Ultimately it suffers from one very extreme case of style over substance, but what a style it is. Definitely worth seeing in theatres, if nowhere else.

Well, here it is.

James Cameron's project has been hyped to within an inch of its proverbial life over the years, what with the epic budget, alleged re-inventing of special effects and some admittedly underwhelming trailers full of conspicuously computer-generated blue elves. The question that's burning in everybody's mind leading up to its release this week is: Is it really that great? The answer: pretty much, yeah. But more on that in a bit.

For those of you who haven't heard the story, the plot revolves around paraplegic marine Sully (Sam Worthington), who's offered a second chance at life on the lush alien planet of Pandora. The humans on the planet are engaged in a war with the native population, blue humanoid warriors known as the Na'vi, over extremely valuable natural resources. To this end, a handful of scientists (led by a delightfully taciturn Sigourney Weaver) have created an "avatar" project where people control cloned Na'vi in order to get close to the tribes and work something out. Through a cruel twist of fate, Sully ends up controlling one such avatar and from there the story well and truly begins.

Now, where do I start with Avatar? The film's a lot of things, but it's obviously not perfect, and I'm not sure whether to address its flaws or good points first. Something tells me I'll go with the flaws first. It's hard to judge them too objectively - it all depends on just how tolerant you can be. I'd probably say the film's worst flaw also plays a huge part in defining just how good (or bad) the film is. I refer of course to the film's copious use of CGI characters. This is a problem that I think will depend on the viewer. Either you're going to find it horribly distracting the whole way through or get used to it after about five minutes. I reckon this is something that is up to every viewer to decide. Myself - I fall into the latter camp. Just as well, because that could very well be the major deciding point in how to judge the film, if only because Avatar is saturated with CGI. Not like that's a bad thing, as a lot of the CGI looks very flash. Avatar's look is pretty damned impressive, all things considered. Between the lush locations, slick gadgetry and veritable cornucopia of action available, I can hardly see how the film's abundance of CGI is a problem. It definitely aims high and hits its mark a lot.

With that main issue out of the way, the rest of the film manages to be considerably strong a lot of the time. Once the story gets going, it stays riveting for much of its lengthy runtime. It's well-written, even if one of the central metaphors seems a little too obvious (powerful corporation attacking harmless natives over valuable resources - not exactly subtle) and it managed to keep reasonably surprising all the way to the end. The acting was by and large good; Worthington doesn't exactly shine as the hero, but he performs reasonably well. The highlight is probably Weaver, although there's something to be said for Stephen Lang's battle-scarred colonel, who makes up for a general lack of character dimension with relative ease.

The real question remains as to just how great Avatar is. It's definitely an amazing epic in spite of its few flaws and relative lack of originality, so it's admittedly far from perfect. It remains by and large a visual extravaganza if nothing else, and should deserve consideration for one of the better blockbusters of the year (if not necessarily one of the best films). Depending on your expectations, it either wasn't quite as great as it could have been or it was far superior. If you had mixed expectations like I did, it's probably a mix of both. Avatar remains a technically great piece, a bit lightweight in parts, but overall pretty damned good. I'll definitely be checking this out in 3-D, anyway.