Avatar

James Cameron's much hyped Avatar finally hit the cinemas last week and has been shown in 2D, 3D and an IMAX 3D release.

Avatar focuses on a large conflict on a moon called Pandora. Humans seek to exploit the Moon's stock of a precious mineral called Unobtanium. Humans are unable to survive the atmosphere in Pandora so a team of human researchers developed a system where a person can control a hybrid of a human and a Na'vi.

The main character Jake Sully's first mission is to escort Dr. Augustine and Norm through the jungle, the group is attacked by a large creature and Jake gets seperated. Jake attracts a female Na'vi called Neytiri who rescues him from the night and the dangerous creatures.

Back in the real world Jake's Colonel orders him to convince the Na'vis to abandon their Hometree so a large supply of Unobtainium can be harvested. As Jake learns the ways of the Na'vis and as his relationship with Neytiri blossoms he gets torn between his mission and his loyalty to the Na'vis.

Part way through his mission bulldozers come in and start to destroy the Hometree, he then convinces the Colonel to give him one more hour to convince the Na'vis to move. He is unsuccessful and the Colonel launches an attack on the Na'vis resulting in numerous casulties and the Na'vis losing Jake's trust.

Jake then manages to regain trust with the Na'vi and assembles an army ready to take on the humans. The battle is epic and there are many losses on both sides, the battle culmulates with a battle between Jake's avatar and the Colonel. The Colonel exposes the real Jake to the atmosphere in Pandora, Jake's wife acts quickly and shoots the Colonel with a bow and arrow and quickly puts an oxygen mask on Jake, this scene merges the real Jake in the avatar world.

The film ends with the defeated humans leaving Pandore whilst Jake and his friends are allowed to stay.

Avatar is a long film, almost 3 hours. The CGI is excellent with real world elements and the Avatar world blended together seamlessly. In 3D the scenery has a real sense of depth as opposed to a lot of 3D films where the emphasis is objects flying towards the viewer.

Sadly the story is a bit flimsy and the film's attempts of having messages and meanings come across as weak, the romance storyline is very poor too.

The film looks great but there is more to a good film than good visual effects.

5 out of 10

A Christmas Carol 3D

Disney re-tell the classic Dickens Christmas Carol in 3d, bringing in voice actors such as Gary Oldman, Jim Carrey and Colin Firth.

The film follows the story of the book and doesn't stray too far away from it.

Contrary to what I expected the film is quite a grim and dark affair, there are ghosts, skeletons and corpses. Some of the sequences in 3D are genuinely creepy, suprising for a film only rated PG. But there are some light hearted moments especially those when Ebeneezer gets visited by the ghost of Christmas past. Overall though the film does have a very dark tone especially when compared to other re-tellings of A Christmas Carol.

On the plus side it did look fantastic in high definition 3D and the CGI was amazing, some of the best I have seen, but the lack of christmas cheer did disappoint me.

5 out of 10

Toy Story in 3D

After the most recent Disney films been released in 3d, the classic Toy Story gets a 3d makeover. Presented in high definition 3d the film has never looked so good.

Although Toy Story is not as 3d oriented as a film that was intended to be shown in 3d such as Final Destination, Pixar have done a great job of making the film 3d especially on shots of scenery as you can really see the depth and there are also a few sequences involving objects jumping out of the screen. It is worth seeing and I am hoping that Toy Story 2 gets the 3d treatment as well

7 out of 10

500 Days of Summer- Rated 15

Presented in a non linear narrative and with several animation sequences it is clear from the start that this is not your average romcom.

Tom Hanson works as a greeting card editor and a new assistant in the company starts (played by Zooey Deschanel) called Summer. Tom and Summer discover from the start that they both have the same tastes in music and that they have a lot in common, Tom soon becomes attracted to Summer. Following a drunken karaoke night a co-worker lets slip that Tom is attracted to her. They both gradually become closer but unfortunatly Summer does not believe in true love and that she doesn't want a boyfriend. But they do start dating.

The film goes back and forth in time showing them as a couple then showing them apart depending on which of the 500 days it is.

On day 290 they split up, Tom does not handle the break up well and Summer leaves her job. A few months later Summer and Tom end up bumping in to each other at a wedding, they dance together and Tom seems to think that there is a chance they could get back together. Summer then invites him to a party, at the party he notices that she is wearing an engagement ring, he has realised that the party is to celebrate her engagement and he leaves. Tom then goes on a downward spiral of alcohol and depression.

The film ends where Tom meets Summer at his favourite spot. Tom then later attends a job interview and meets a girl called Autumn who is also attending an interview for the same job. They then go on a coffee date.

It is a very stylish different romcom to the norm and as such people will either love it or hate it. The animation, the narrative style and even the indie soundtrack are not usually found in a romantic comedy. I enjoyed it and I think if you enjoyed slightly offbeat films such as Juno or Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist then you will enjoy this.

7 out of 10

The Final Destination in 3D- Rated 15

Set 10 years after the first Final Destination film Bobby has a vision of a big crash at a speedway race track. Luckily he manages to convince his friends there is danger coming but many lives are lost in a spectacular collision.

One by one Bobby has visions of the survivors dying and he tries to save his friends from death in order to breake the chain.

The film hasn't got a vastly complex plot and the film is repetitive in that each scene is a build up to an often gruesome death. The story isn't great, the character development is non existent but in terms of entertainment value it is fantastic. The 3d glasses really enhance the depth of the locations and there are plenty of objects jumping out of the screen at you!

The special effects and action sequences are very impressive and they look fantastic in high definition 3d. I couldn't imagine this film being too good in 2d.

I really enjoyed this film and I can recommend it to anyone who wants an 80minute thrill.

9 out of 10

Star Trek

I recently went to watch the new Star Trek movie at the cinema and was not really sure what to expect as Star Trek does not exactly have a reputation of being cool - however I left the cinema pleasantly surprised and wanting more of the sci-fi action thriller.

It is the eleventh Star Trek film - however this film is a prequel that tells the story of how James T Kirk came to be Captain of the Star Ship Enterprise whilst following some of the old favourite characters such as "Scotty" and "Spock" whom have to work together to fight the evil Romulan: "Nero". Nero whom is played by Eric Bana wrongly thinks that Spock destroyed his home planet, so plots to travel back in time to stop the people who would contribute to the misfortune of his people. It emerges that James T Kirk's father, was originally to live a long and happy life, watching and supporting his son progress through the Star Fleet ranks, but now dies honorably in a Romulan attack, sacrificing himself to save his crew who were fleeing the attacked ship in escape pods. In one of the pods was his pregnant wife whom gives birth to James in the escape module itself. A new, parallel-universe is born, that tells the early story of the Enterprise.

This fast-paced thriller keeps you on your toes as you switch from different star dates and alternate realities. It will satisfy both die-hard trekkies and new watchers as you laugh and gasp with the characters.

Star Trek was so much more than I had expected and I would strongly recommend it to anyone - as it has all the attributes of a great film and manages to gel them into the best Star Trek yet.

written by Alex of Windermere, aged 16. The winner of the wotson4u review competition!

The Unborn- Rated 15 (out now on dvd and bluray)

The film revolves around lead character Casey discovering that she had a twin that died who she did not know about. She starts experiencing nightmare-like visions and hallucinations.

The visions she is having is the spirit of her twin haunting her and wanting to transfer in to the real world. She meets a woman called Sofi who turns out to be her grandmother who was also haunted by a spirit of a twin. What follows is a series of supernatural events resulting in her friend, her boyfriend and her grandmother!! After an exorcism the evil spirit is drawn back from the human world.

It all sounds very far fetched and it is. The film has lots of ideas from The Grudge right down to similar action sequences and that it has a curse that gets passed around.

As modern horror films go it is one of the better ones, some of the shocks and visuals are genuinely haunting but it blatantly takes some elements from other horror films.

6 out of 10, worth renting

Terminator Salvation- Rated 12A (at cinemas now)

After the let down that was Terminator 3- Rise of the Machines, the film series continues with Terminator Salvation.

It is a lot different to previous films with the emphasis being on the war against the machines as opposed to a Terminator trying to track someone down with a side plot of John Connor trying to find Kyle Reece.

The plot is a bit weak but the visual fx are so huge you won't care! The battle scenes are epic and they last for a suprisingly long time, the pace rarely lets up and barely 10 minutes can go past without a battle or an explosion!

Several references to the first two films are made with some voice over by the original Sarah Connor, a track from a previous soundtrack and towards the end one of the Terminators bears an uncanny resemblance to Arnold Schwarzenegger...

Overall it is a lot better than Rise of the Machines. I didn't enjoy it as much as the first two but it is a different style of film. Fantastic special effects but a poor plot.

7 out of 10