Avatar - actually, I loved it

I'm not a big fan of action movies, but Avatar was one who I kept thinking about since I saw it on Sunday evening. And that's not because it was about a big, important topic. No, it was because James Cameron again managed to create characters I could connect to and I cared about, even though many of them are computer-generated aliens. How does he do it?

• Cameron likes women. Most of his movies include strong female characters and I believe it's hard to make a good movie without women in significant roles. Interesting that much of Hollywood ignores that fact, besides casting Angelina Jolie as super-assasin again and again.


• A strong love story helps to make the audience care about the characters. Saving the world or fighting evil may be good motivations for the hero, but the rest of us can connect far better with falling in love.


• The story was original. Yes, it was composed out of very familiar templates, but it didn't follow a comic or a novel and that eliminates lots of constraints. It is understandable that Hollywood likes to not build up excitement from scratch and rely on already familiar characters and story lines, but this also has twisted movie making in a weird way, where childish cues (e.g. a guy dressed as a bat) need to be turned into something bigger and more meaningful.


• He keeps the story simple. That is criticized in some places, but there's awful little time, to tell a complex story, even in a almost three hour movie. So it helps if the badass colonel is nothing but a badass colonel and the sleazy corporate guy doesn't suddenly sprout a conscience.


• Create the right dose of action sequences. Avatar had a lot of them, but not too many. More important, they were mostly connected to the story.

So, Avatar is a very good movie and it's one worth to go to the theatre for. And, I'm actually looking forward to the sequel.