Saturday, December 19, 2009

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It's a movie.

It's a good movie.

It's a GREAT movie.

I highly recommend this movie to you the 3 readers of this blog. And see the "Real 3D" version if you can. I won't tell you to go see it--now! I will simply say that I don't think you'll be disappointed if you do.

I will admit, I was skeptical. I have grown increasingly nearsighted as I grow older. As a result, I must wear glasses if I want to see anything clearly that is farther away than 15 feet. This means that when I go to see a movie in a theater, I either have to sit in the front row (a guaranteed recipe for a head and neck ache) or wear my glasses to see the movie clearly. This of course, brings me in a roundabout way to my point: I had to wear the Real 3D glasses over my own glasses if I wanted to get the full effect. This was also a guaranteed recipe for a skull-splitting headache.

But it sooo didn't matter.

For nearly 3 hours today, I sat in a movie theater and was transported into another world.

This was the first movie I've seen in a theater using the Real 3D technology, and I think this was also the first movie that REALLY made use of the technology. And I have to say that if the brainiacs working this technology ever figure a way to make it so the audience doesn't have to wear the glasses to experience the effect, there will never be another major motion picture made without it.

Of course, after I got over my awe over the movie technology (it took about 2 hours after I got home), I began to dissect this movie with what I hoped was an objective eye. It has a rather standard plot, as I know has been pointed out by various critics: The Evil Humans invade a lush paradise populated by an initially peaceful indigenous species. After their initial efforts are repulsed when said species fights back, they try a different approach: send in infiltrators to study the culture and determine its weaknesses. Of course, said infiltrators naturally come to sympathize with the indigenous species' cause, and over the course of such become its greatest champions and fiercest defenders.

The fact that the plot is cliched, I believe, does not detract from it. It's a well-known fact that any number of tragedies of human history are the result of one race of humans wiping out another. And if it takes a $200 million+ movie with some of the most spectacular special effects seen in a loooong time to drive this point home, then I have no problem with it.

In the meantime, this movie was the most entertaining movie I've seen in a long time, and I may do something that I haven't done in over 2 decades: I may go see it in a theater again. It was that good. And well worth the 3 minutes I sat in the theater afterwords massaging my temples to try to ease the headache caused by the glasses.

So again I will say to you who read this: If you see it, I don't think you'll be disappointed.

You can't say that about many movies these days.

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