Malc

Great to see Sam Raimi caring again! It certainly has a lot of room for improvement (the weak cgi and music) but at the heart of the movie is a Misery-like thriller that is too fun to watch. Rachel McAdams playing a dorky/awkward character so perfectly to the point where it completely overshadows her co-star.

The first Avatar movie that lacks anything drastically new visually, so by all means it needed a good script. Unfortunately it seems like James Cameron has already run out of ideas as this film follows so many similar plot and visual beats from the last one that it just felt like I watched the same movie twice. Its saving grace is James Camerons direction, which manages to make this mediocre material watchable. Regardless, it still doesn’t excuse the lack of ambition or ideas for a sequel of this scale.  And please, get rid of that awful character Spider, easily the worst part of the movie.

There is such a bizarre whirlwind of ideas and emotions that this movie exudes while still succeeding as a cohesive film. What makes the film succeed is Cage, who gives a phenomenal performance. Everyone knows him for his over the top acting at times, but here he shows restraint, even in scenes where his character is exuding anger.  The big highlight is the cringe enduring scene thats halfway through the film, one of the most effective scenes of the past few years hands down.

It is absurd at the overly negative reception this film got, it is just too well made to justify the hatred towards this one.   Strong recommendation if you love the writers next film Used Cars just as much as I do.