And that’s being nice! Really, it was more of a three and a half rating. It was overhyped and poorly written.  Ciri and I loved it and hated it at the same time.

It should be called Ferngully Two: The Last of the Mohicans Smurfs

The biggest problem was the plot formula was so obvious it took me out of the movie.  Anytime that happens, I automatically take away a star.  Boom.

It felt like an expensive Ferngully, but with realistic thriving Smurfs. I say Smurfs not only because they are blue, but because of their tree hugging lifestyle.  They don’t make any attempt to hide the inspiration for the character design.  Maybe Ferngumurfs aren’t the inspiration, which is fine, but you can’t deny the similarity.

Dude, to help drive the point, the Last of the Mohicans guy IS the leader of the Na’vi tribe!  It’s the freaking Sphinx, man! Come on…

Don’t get me started on the unibtanium.  Guh.

So, to sum it up, bad character design and a cliché plot lost it two stars.  On the other hand, the characters themselves were beautifully rendered -  visually and emotionally.  The actors did a damn good job.  The artists went to town on those renders too.

The forests where beautiful too, it really is getting harder and harder to see the differences between CG and real actors.  It’s exciting and scary at the same time. I’ll give them a star back.

Although, when it came down to the mixture of the two, I wasn’t that impressed.  District 9 was way better.  Maybe District 9 had it easier with a lighter, less dynamic color palette and maybe it would look better in HD.  Either way, I was more impressed by the integration in District 9’s mecha scene than in Avatar’s final mecha scene.  It looked like a typical CG cartoon to me.

Speaking of bad guys.

The last bit I’m going to whine about is the Colonel’s death.  I won’t argue that it was a good conclusion, I just think it could have been better.  This guy was a war-mongering evil bastard.  I find that antagonists’ deaths mean more when it is caused by their own deeds.

It didn’t make sense for the Na’vi princess chick to kill him.  They’re supposed to treasure life and even evil souls deserve the chance to repent their sins, right?  If they really did hold life sacred, then she wouldn’t have killed him.  I would have liked for him to make it to the tree and as he tried to destroy the tree, the tree absorbed him into the collective.  How cool would it be for the antagonist to be assimilated against his will into the thing he hated the most? All kinds of metaphors in there.

I know I’m late but…

So, by the time I get to watch the movie, everyone has pretty much said everything there is to say.  Argued points have come and gone.  But I don’t care.    If I repeat what’s been said, sorry.  I tried to avoid the conversations about this movie so I could go into it without bias.  The only thing I really heard was the Smurf thing – which I totally agree with too – and the Last of the Mohicans comparison.  I’ve never seen the Last of the Mohicans so I’m good there.  I think I can say I watched it with an open mind.

So. Four out of five stars.  Bad design and plot.  Awesome effects and acting.  The story telling isn’t too bad either.  It’s just the devices I have issues with.  Ok.  Getting off the soap box again… for now.

-Juan

Type Drawing is a neat little iPhone app. Using the iPhone’s native fonts, it allows you to arrange a string of text around an image in anyway your imagination allows. You can create things like this or you can create art centered on the type itself. Either way, it is, simply, fun.

Made this with the iMotion app for the iPhone (currently Free until the 10th!!). I wonder what other shenanigans I can get into with this app… hrm… (Link in case it’s not moving above.) It’s pretty neat, it takes a set number of photos over a set amount of time then stitches them together as an animated GIF. Resolution is obviously lower than the camera’s native resolution, but I
don’t think the file size would be very transportable if it was animated at full resolution. I can also email it to friends as an attachment from within the app. Get it for free while you still can.

Mo-Review! DragonBall: Evolution

Part of Moblogging also includes words. So here’s another MoReview on DragonBall Evolution. It’s ok. Yea it has it’s holes and annoyances, but it’s fun. Kamehameha wave was kinda weak – I expected something more epic. There were other liberties that were taken that I thought were just too distracting, but as a psuedo-reboot, it wasn’ t all that bad. Rent it if you enjoyed Dragonballs.

MoReview: Minigore! Awesome Iphone game. Kinda simple right now but there is lots of potential (new monsters, levels, powerups, etc). And simple doesn’t mean “bad.” Trying to increase your high score is enough to get you to play over and over again. Beautiful art direction with the music and animation. Can’t wait for acheivements! Twitter and Facebook integration for some friendly competition! Well worth the 99 pennies.