James Cameron's Avatar: 20 Mins of Sci-Fi Bliss

I got a 20 min sneak peek, but every minute was truly astounding. Now, I will be honest, when the movie started the first few minutes I said to myself, well the CGI is brilliant but I have seen something similar, which is almost as good. I was thinking about Final Fantasy: Advent Children on Blu Ray, as it looks just as good. Five min into the sneak, peek, my doubts were beaten down to a pulp by James Cameron's 3D hammer. I realized that the CGI actors feel so real; every bit of their face in close-up is flawlessly replicated. The way the skin moves and stretches around the eyes, how every emotion can be felt, how every single body movement is life-like. The movie relies on quite a few close-ups and that's when you see how truly amazing the motion capture is, and how it adds so much character to these virtual avatars.

The latter part of the sneak peek was in the outdoors in the open skies. Jake is learning how to tame an ugly flying creature, one of the rituals of the Na'vi. The creature puts up a fight, but Jake manages to tame it and take control. The sequence was the most impressive of the lot with the 3D coming alive when the thing flies. The sequence also demonstrates Jake s relationship with the other Na'vi, especially Neytiri. She is a female warrior, who also doubles up as Jake's mentor. Neytiri is a strong and beautiful   Na'vi, who believes in Jake, even though the rest of her clan find him out of place. The two characters share some really good chemistry and its clearly visible to the audience.

As a critic, I would like to point out a few things. There is a high chance that many will be put off by the movie's visual due to the color scheme. The world of Pandora is bright and colorful, and it's the mix of bright yellow and blue that hides the truly magnificent animation work and makes it look like a Pixar production. If you see the screenshots and the trailer, you will see what I mean.