Okay, so I have to be honest. Even though I’m a huge James Cameron fan I was a bit skeptical about AVATAR. To me the trailers and commercials weren’t really doing a good enough job convincing me it was worthy of the hype. Some of the CGI stuff looked like video game cut scene clips. I was totally prepared for lackluster reviews.

But I guess I was wrong.

The first review of AVATAR by The Hollywood Reporter kind of says it all. “Bottom Line: A titanic entertainment — movie magic is back!” According to this review Avatar not only delivers but does so in spades. The 161 minute run time, which would normally mean the director was a bit overindulgent in his choice of what to keep on the screen is apparently not an issue as THR says it “flies by in a rush.”

Looks like the love story works, the action is top notch and the technology is state of the art. Back when LORD OF THE RINGS came out the biggest jaw dropper was the amazing performance of Gollum. It seems like Cameron’s taken these advances in motion capture over the last decade and advanced them light years beyond anything anyone has seen before. But that’s just pure Cameron, the same guy who blew me away with Aliens, T2 and yes, Titanic.

So now I’m totally pumped for AVATAR’s December 18th release date. You can bet I’m gonna go and see the earliest screening I can get to. I can’t wait.

I should probably try to write an AVATAR gag for next week’s THINGS I LEARNED THIS WEEK, while I’m at it.