TheWrap at Cameron's Nationwide Avatar Sneak

The man who famously declared himself King of the World on Oscar night 10 years ago has now become the ruler of an entire planet.

Directing his first feature since "Titanic," James Cameron appears to have gone in a similarly epic direction with "Avatar," a technologically audacious 3D sci-fi production that was previewed for audiences on IMAX screens around the country on Friday -- a day he dubbed "Avatar Day."

Attendees eagerly reserved their free tickets for the 15-minute preview well in advance, crashing the site on multiple occasions. Nevertheless, two of the four screenings that took place at the AMC Empire in Times Square Friday evening contained dozens of empty seats, an absence that Fox representatives blamed on the rainy weather.

For such a highly ambitions marketing scheme, there seemed to be a fair amount of confusion among casual moviegoers.

One group thought they were going to see the entire movie. "Well," concluded a member of the crowd, "we could go see the new Tarantino instead." (AMC offered $9 discounted tickets to attendees interested in watching something else after the presentation, and they could also purchase tickets to midnight screenings of "Avatar" for its Dec. 18 release date.)

A family seated near me mistakenly thought this was a big-screen adaptation of "Avatar: The Last Airbender," Nickelodeon's animated series currently being turned into a live action feature by M. Night Shyamalan.

"That was nothing like the cartoon!" lamented a confused adolescent.

Nevertheless, it would appear that Cameron's interstellar adventure does qualify as a cartoon -- albeit an adult one.

"Avatar" takes place in the 22nd century, when paralyzed soldier Jake (Sam Worthington) agrees to a complex military experiment that implants his conciousness in the body of a Na'avi, the large humanoid alien species whose planet serves as the movie's principle battleground.

These sparkly blue characters tower over people and dart about with whip-fast tails in tow. When Jake becomes embedded in their culture (unknowingly participating in a military invasion scheme), he forms a partnership with Neyitri (Zoe Saldana), a female Na'avi equipped with the primal toughness necessary to survive on the planet's cutthroat jungle environment.

The four scenes included in the preview mainly consisted of Jake running, dodging and shooting on the colorful alien planet, which looks unquestionably fake but nevertheless contains an engagingly multitextured patchwork of advanced color schemes and expressive imagery.

In its faster moments, "Avatar" resembles the cutscenes of a videogame -- which, unfortunately, means that its supposedly "historic" 3D achievements only add a mild sensory flourish to the kind of spectacle that 21st century audiences got used to a long time ago.

The first scene in the preview shows Jake in a wheelchair listening to a military sergeant explain the dangers of the Na'avi's home planet, Pandora. "You're not in Kansas anymore," he barks.

In the next scene, a smarmy scientist (Sigourney Weaver) helps Jake into a coffin-like apparatus that transfers his mind into the avatar.

 

1 | 2