Filed Under: Big Bang Theory>Avatar

First, let me say that I've got no beef with the Na'avi. The Na'avi prove that you can never be too thin, too tall or too blue. The Na'avi also make me realize how much I miss my prehensile tail. I highly recommend that everyone go see this movie on the biggest possible 3D screen (preferably IMAX).

But I do have a beef with Hollywood; Hollywood has never seen a movie that couldn't be improved with a couple dozen explosions. I guess I have been holding on to all this resentment since 2000 when I saw the movie Vertical Limit, one of the stupidest movies of all time. The central conceit of this movie is that a party of climbers have to rescue their friends who fell into a crevasse on K2. The first thing the rescuers think to bring is not rope, medical supplies or warm clothes. It's nitroglycerin. You know; the explosive liquid used for construction and demolition. This, of course, is just a cheap Hollywood excuse to blow things up in a story that has no need for explosions. Unfortunately, there are plenty of stories that don't need or benefit from explosions but Hollywood is so fixated on delivering maximum bang for the buck that they dare not skimp in the explosion department. The recent Sherlock Holmes remake with Robert Downey Jr. is a perfect example of a movie that could have benefited from a good story, good acting and no explosions. This was not to be. When Hollywood was done with this movie, all the intellectual charm of Sherlock Holmes had been thrown out the window and we were left with an action movie we have seen hundreds of times before...and plenty of explosions.

And that brings me to Avatar. This was truly an entertainment spectacle unlike anything I have seen before. And the shoot-em-up second half of the movie was just as visually enthralling as the first, but it was the first half of the movie, before they started blowing things up, that really wowed me.