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I hope you had a Merry Christmas, and are all psyched up for a Happy New Year!

And thank you for asking about My Christmas...darned decent of you. Yes, my friends, it was a fine day, a fine day indeed. I wasn't sure it was going to turn out all that well, but it did.

There was the standard "opening of gifts", but you don't want to hear about boxes of pajamas, picture frames, and battery-operated headlamps, etc. You want to hear about Avatar, right?

Yes, we went to see the big holiday movie. I was not optimistic -- It had many elements that usually indicate a horrible moviegoing experience:

• It's being described as an "epic"...and it has flying dragons. Sounds like a hobbit ripoff, and probably has one of those grizzled old Ians (McKellan, McDiarmid, etc.) spouting demi-religious nonsense to impressionable young morons. ("Use the Dark Side, Frodo," etc.)


• It's in 3D, which generally gives me a headache. (I still have nightmares about "Captain Eo"...but come to think of it, that might not have had anything to do with the 3D aspect of it.) 3D means we'll have lots of projectiles flung at the audience, none of which are impelled by any plot motivation. FX for FX's sake is a recipe for disaster (see Star Trek, the Motion Picture.)
• The ads for the movie are hyping the film's director...which usually means that the movie itself isn't worth talking about.


• It reeks of political correctness: Evil corporation vs. goodhearted tree-huggers, yadda yadda yadda. The only deviation from the standard "green message" template is that the "green" folks are actually blue.


• And it's got Sigourney Weaver.

Wait, scratch that last one; I may not be a big SigWeave fan, but she has been in some pretty good movies, like "Holes". (Maybe she'll use some rattlesnake venom fingernail polish to scar up the aliens! Or dragon venom...whatever.)

Despite the upfront negatives, though, I have to admit that I thoroughly enjoyed this movie. I was completely engrossed; I cannot remember the last time I sat in a theatre for 3 hours without once even thinking about going to the bathroom. And the 3D effects were good enough to make me duck when things blew up, and feel dizzy with vertigo when we looked over the edge of cliffs.

One more comment about the 3D -- a guy in the row in front went to get popcorn, and I honestly was surprised to see that he didn't have to brush ferns out of his way to get back to his seat. I was completely engrossed in the entire experience.

I'm not saying this is a great film. The characters are too predictable, the plot too linear. The corporate/military tactics were implausible and in some cases, just plain silly. There weren't any fat aliens, nor any lifeforms that weren't direct descendants of Ray Harryhausen. But nothing about the plot or plausibility is SO horrible that it takes you out of the experience...and the visuals are simply marvelous.

I left the theater thinking I probably wouldn't go back to see it again, despite my enjoyment. But after further thought, I'm now inclined to go back and enjoy it at least one more time. Not sure I could handle IMAX without an airsickness bag, but I'd definitely like to do the 3D thing again.

I apologize if you were expecting a more detailed plot review. If you want more nitty gritty, let me know. But even if you're not into dragons and aliens and stuff, you might want to see this movie just for the experience of seeing some highly realistic giant trees, hammerhead stegosauri, and humongous cliffs. It'll be fun!

Whatever you do with the rest of your 2009, though, have fun and a fabulous New Years celebration!