What: Avatar 3D
Where: United States
When: December 18, 2009 (First day of movie release)
Rating: 10 out of 5 stars (out of the world)

Today, the movie Avatar was released throughout the world and I watched history unfold around me.  I say it with such vigor, because the movie left me speechless.  Avatar defiles the rest in its class and by doing so claims its rightful place as the movie of the 21st Century. 

Avatar 3D was not only a thrill ride; it was much more.  It was a chance to explore a world unlike ours yet so real that it was hard to believe that much of it was the imagination of James Cameron's(director) creative team.  I will spare the rest who weren't so lucky enough to see the movie on its first day of release by avoiding the plot line.  However I would like to point out that through half way in the movie, I started feeling guilty.  Why?  The movie was so powerful, that something inside me started rooting for the Navi' people(natives of Pandora).  I felt swayed by their free spirited culture and their connect with nature.  Oddly enough, I also liked their beautiful blue skin. 

Avatar is a must see.  This is not the type of movie you want to wait around till it comes out on DVD for it won't look so good on TV.  Avatar 3D requires an IMAX experience for a total immersion into Pandora's vast and intriguing rain forest.  To explore the vividness of imagination, characters(Pandora's people and animals), gunships, and landscape, you will need to get up close, just enough to crouch or jerk back upon seeing a flying object graze your face.  I sat in the very front, just 3 rows from the giant screen.  Although, I was fortunate enough to really blend in with the alien planet, I was grazed often by sharp grass blades, and tropical leaves.  Often times, I actually raised my hand in an effort to grab hold of some of the flying "pure seeds from the tree of souls." 

Avatar provided a break from the mundane reality.  It featured a new source of imagination.  Imagination that creates another planet with viable alien forms that are not too weird to become science fiction.  Pandora seemed very plausible.  I remember when leaving the theater, I told my friend that if there was an Avatar program out there, I would be the first to sign up for it. 

SPOILER ALERT: Avatar is the name of the program that recruits scientists who are willing to control a new lab created breed, a mix of human and Navi, in order to fit in with the natives and understand them.  The scientists were looking to find a diplomatic solution in order to relocate the Navi from their current home(a tree which sits atop a huge mineral deposit).      

By Dev R, founder of Bengali Review