Avatar: “Semplicemente, l’hype è vero. Non avete mai visto niente del genere prima d’ora” (il 15 gennaio da noi)
Su Avatar non ho mai avuto dubbi. L’unica cosa che ho messo in discussione era la capacità di internet di rendere giustizia all’esperienza vissuta in sala ammirandone anche solo pochi minuti.
Ieri sera, dopo la prima testimonianza dall’anteprima londinese, ho avuto tutte le conferme di cui avevo bisogno. Poi sono arrivate le prime recensioni e parlano da sole.
Qui sotto una raccolta di citazioni dalle prime recensioni (che in realtà non avrebbero dovuto esserci per l’embargo imposto dalla Fox) trovate online.
La storia viene criticata da più parti, “già vista”, ma a questa considerazione penso risponda in modo inappuntabile la recensione di CooomingSoon.net, su tutto il resto anche i più critici (vedi BoxOffice Magazine) sembrano essere d’accordo.
Grande rimpianto il non poterlo vedere subito, tanto che mi viene voglia di volare a Londra, ne capisco le ragioni commerciali, ma da spettatore appassionato è dura rassegnarsi alle solite Vacanze di Natale.
Comunque ecco le citazioni!
Twelve years after “Titanic,” which still stands as the all-time B.O. champ, Cameron delivers again with a film of universal appeal that just about everyone who ever goes to the movies will need to see.
The third dimension functions as an enhancement, not a raison d’etre, so the film will look perfectly fine without it.
Thematically, the film also plays too simplistically into stereotypical evil-white-empire/virtuous-native cliches, especially since the invaders are presumably on an environmental rescue mission on behalf of the entire world, not just the U.S.
On an experiential level, however, “Avatar” is all-enveloping and transporting, with Cameron & Co.’s years of R&D paying off with a film that, as his work has done before, raises the technical bar and throws down a challenge for the many other filmmakers toiling in the sci-fi/fantasy realm
A dozen years later, James Cameron has proven his point: He is king of the world.
[Cameron]… brings science-fiction movies into the 21st century with the jaw-dropping wonder that is “Avatar.
The movie is 161 minutes and flies by in a rush. Repeat business? You bet. “Titanic”-level business? That level may never be reached again, but Fox will see more than enough grosses worldwide to cover its bet on Cameron.
It’s a 3D movie people will look back on in years to come to comment on how it transformed cinema.
In recent 3D releases such as Beowulf, the effects were impressive but the computer-generated humans looked far from real.
In Avatar, everything feels real – and it’s as if you are immersed in the action.The romance between Jake and Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) shows that Cameron has not lost his ability to evoke emotion. It will bring tears to your eyes.
Some people – who have only seen the photos and not the film – have commented that it looks a bit cartoonish.
It doesn’t. Everything feels real. It’s as if Cameron has happened upon this alien world and got his camera out.The only reason that Avatar won’t top Titanic at the box office is that there are not enough digital screens around the world to show it in all its 3D wonder.
– Dalla recensione del Guardian
Rumours that the budget was double the stated amount, more like $500m; that the 3D effects were making people nauseous; that the film, two hours and 40 minutes long, was a complete car crash. The Guardian can reveal that the last two are untrue.
Cynics might sneer at the plot
– Dalla recensione di Cooming Soon
Amazing creatures, cool environments, impressive 3-D effects, and awesome action scenes make “Avatar” the must-see movie of the 2009 holiday season. While the story is quite familiar, there’s more than enough visual spectacle to make up for it.
First and foremost, the world of Pandora is absolutely amazing. Every plant, animal, and environment is incredibly imaginative. James Cameron takes the familiar and puts a new spin on it to create an incredible, yet entirely realistic feeling world.
As far as what didn’t work goes, an easy thing to point at is the overall story. This is, essentially, “Dances with Wolves” set on an alien planet. But you know what? This is a story that has been told many, many times. Look at anything from “A Man Called Horse” to the biblical story of Moses.
Avatar” is a fun, imaginative film that brings some popcorn flick excitement to an otherwise dreary holiday movie lineup. It should please sci-fi fans while dazzling general moviegoing audiences at the same time.
if you’re not, in other words, one of those splenetic internet fanboy types who’ve apparently made their minds up about Avatar before seeing it – then Avatar is a hugely rewarding experience: rich, soulful and exciting in the way that only comes from seeing a master artist at work.
Let’s address the Big Question first: to use the key phrase so often used in connection with the movie, is it a game-changer? Yes, and no would be the cop-out answer, but it’s also the truth.
It’s been twelve years since Titanic, but the King of the World has returned with a flawed but fantastic tour de force that, taken on its merits as a film, especially in two dimensions, warrants four stars. However, if you can wrap a pair of 3D glasses round your peepers, this becomes a transcendent, full-on five-star experience that’s the closest we’ll ever come to setting foot on a strange new world. Just don’t leave it so long next time, eh, Jim?
I have seen the future, and it’s three-dimensional. James Cameron’s dazzling, exhilarating, 3D sci-fi epic Avatar, which had its premiere in Leicester Square last night, represents a dramatic leap in film technology.
he director of Titanic has also set a benchmark for blockbusters in terms of sheer spectacle. The detail, the depth, the jaw-dropping boldness of Avatar simply bowl you over.
The romance between Neytiri and Jake, which cruel previewers labelled “smurf porn”, works. I stopped noticing the technological sophistication because I was immersed in Cameron’s roaring imagination.
The next thing was that the film will be the second highest grossing film of all time, following only Titanic. I am estimating $450 million domestic and more than $750 million worldwide.
Simply, the hype is true. You have never seen anything like it before.
But Cameron is who he is because he is the ultimate master of the third act. Whatever you have experienced up until then, the third act of Avatar will grab you by the heart and balls, yank hard, and not let go until you are dismissed.
– Dal The Independent
What Avatar does mark is a new breed. A new breed of action film, a new hero in Sam Worthington (who delivers a much more believable, and compelling performance than previous outings) and a new cinematic experience. For every cliche – every colonel telling his troops that they’re “not in Kansas anymore”, every fight beginning with trash talk like “Let’s dance”, there are myriad moments of beauty and of poignancy. And the final battle is worth the price of your 3D glasses alone.
– Da BoxOffice Magazine
If James Cameron’s storytelling abilities matched his soaring visual imagination he might have delivered the world a grand masterpiece in the long awaited Avatar
this 3D, Sci-fi, action adventure in which a human joins forces with an alien race to prevent destruction of their planet by an invading earth force is a pleasure to the eye but jarring to the ear, its hackneyed plot and ridiculous dialogue transform what ought to be awe-inspiring and moving into something often unintentionally funny. But the pictorial pleasures outweigh the ridiculous.
That lack of originality is not fatal, but the clunky dialogue very nearly is.
Cameron is reaching for an epic with this movie: it has the sweep, if not the story. That may be enough to make him, if not King of the World once again, at least the master of this holiday season.
Avatar is an overwhelming, immersive spectacle. The state-of-the-art 3D technology draws us in, but it is the vivid weirdness of Cameron’s luridly imagined tropical otherworld that keeps us fascinated.
Could it hit Titanic numbers? Probably not, as Avatar is more of a boy’s own adventure, lacking the DiCaprio factor which so obsessed teenage girls back in 1998. It does have its own zeitgeist feel, however, with the visual wow factor augmented by its resonant contemporary themes (environmental destruction, war and corporate corruption) in the context of a sci-fi adventure story. And if that’s not enough, it features a love affair between two blue-skinned aliens which is surprisingly romantic and affecting.
The motion capture technique which Cameron pioneered with Weta Digital is extraordinary, and the expressiveness of the Na’vi, as based on full body performances by Worthington, Saldana, Weaver and others, is immensely engaging.
Altre recensioni arriveranno nelle prossime ore su RottenTomatoes e saranno segnalate ovviamente anche sul nostro ScreenWEEK.it.
