Avatar and Sherlock Holmes Reviewed

I love Christmas Time--because besides summer it's teh only time I get to see movies I'm bound to enjoy.  This year I got to see two, Avatar and Sherlock Holmes.  That's why I picked Double Diamond as the fractal image for today's post: I think you can figure out why without further explanation.
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Christmas Day Robyn and I traveled to the OC to be with friends for Christmas Dinner.  Before we ate we met up with Alison Young and her daugher Eris for an early showing of the latest incarnation of Sherlock Holmes.  Truth in commentary requires that I admit I'm not a huge fan of the "classic" films starring Basil Rathbone as the eponymous lead.  In this case that's probably not a good thing because this ain't your father's "Deerstalker" wearing, Detective.  Yes. he's still a pipe-smoker but the dapper Englishman of yore has been replace by a drug-addled eccentric (like the books but moreso.)  Dr. John Watson has also gotten a makeover--no longer the bumbling fat sidekick he has morphed into a handsome charmer who is almost Holmes' intellectual equal (and not without resources of his own).  
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As a matter-of-fact, the entire "Hommesian" world has gotten a thoroughly modern makeover for this movie.  London is a gritty, dirty place all done in shades of gray and brown.  Holmes is a drug-addled eccentric martial-arts master with a genius that sets him apart from society and makes him barely tolerate (except for a few select individuals that are more-or-less welcomed into his world).  Robert Downey Jr. makes a creditable Sherlock (and I never caught his English accent faltering even once).  Jude Law makes an excellent foil for Downey in his role as Dr. John Watson.  The plot (too complicated to relate in a double review) FX and shooting style are also thoroughly modern but somehow everything worls together for an exciting movie.  It is well worth making the effort to see the movie on a big screen.
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FINAL GRADE: A  
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Writer-Director James Cameron worked for more than a decade to bring Avatar to the big screen.  What he produced was a visual "tour de force" that literally needs to be seen to be believed.  His world is truly alien (if frankly candy-colored) and his alien animals look really cool (even if I'm not sure they could work in anything like a real planet).  The FX and battle scenes are pretty spectacular--and that's where the good things I have to say about the movie pretty much ends.
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The entire plot can be pretty much surmised in one sentance: disaffected hero in the pay of an "evil empire" goes to an unspoiled paradise and has a mystical revelation and leads the natives to preserve their world and way of life.  Yeah, the story is pretty much that simple and its packed with one-dimensional characters that are cliched in the extreme.  I hate to throw terms around like "hackneyed" but that's pretty much what this script is: you can see everything coming from a mile away and even the loud soundtrack can't disguise the loud clockwork grinding as the script clanks along to its inevitable conclusion.  Worse--it takes two hours and forty minutes to get there (and with 25 minutes of previews Avatar is a total :butt-number").  The (mostly unknown) actors do well enough with what they are given to do but I was disturbed by male lead Sam Worthington's "wandering" accent.  (He usually does this very flat American accent but he frequently slips so even an uneducated listener can pick it up.)  Still, the average movie-goer will probably really enjoy Avatar from start to finish.
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Will Avatar make a ton of moeny?  Yes.  Will it, as some commentators claim, change the future of movie-making?  I doubt it.  The 3D FX are nothing short of breathtaking and subtle in their exection.  Are they necessary to enjoy the movie?  No--but the FX raise Avatar from just another movie to the level of "must see".  Was the movie good?  Yes.  Was it $11.75 per ticket (and that was the matinee price!) good?  Not hardly.  All the visual trickery in the world can't mask the fact that Avatar really AIN'T all that.
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FINAL GRADES
     FX: A++
     EVERYTHING ELSE: C