Video review: "Avatar: Extended Collector's Edition"

When "Avatar" was initially released on video in April, I praised James Cameron's visionary film even as I harshly criticized him for giving us such a bare-bones disc -- lacking any kind of commentary track, making-of documentary, anything. It was a major disappointment, and an abandonment of the film's fans to give the top-grossing movie of all time such a meager and, frankly, lazy video release. I stand by those words.

But I also predicted that Cameron would eventually issue a special director's cut or special edition, as he has done with his other seminal films like "Aliens," "Terminator 2: Judgment Day" and "The Abyss" -- though not, notably, with 1997's "Titanic." These special collections boasted all the behind-the-scenes goodies one could ask for, as well as an extended cut of the film.

What I really liked about these previous discs was that they also came with the theatrical version, so you could switch back and forth to the director's cut with the touch of a button.

It wasn't any sort of sorcerous act of prognostication, but I've been proven right: "Avatar: Extended Collector's Edition" follows in the wake of Cameron's other terrific special video editions -- and even puts them to shame.

I can't even begin to describe the amount of extras contained in the three-disc Blu-ray edition. There's hours -- no, make that days worth of material to go through. I've only had time to experience a small portion of them, and they have left me deeply impressed.

Start with the fact there are three versions of the film: The original version; the theatrical re-release edition containing eight additional minutes of footage; and the Collector's Extended Cut that adds another 16 minutes -- bringing the total run time to just a hair under three hours.

The additional footage is seamlessly edited into the existing version, but one great feature allows you to immediately jump to the bonus material for those too anxious to wait to see what's new. (I know I was.)

The extended version includes a haunting new opening sequence of Jake Sully's life on Earth, which has a hard-boiled dystopian flavor reminiscent of "Blade Runner." There's also quite a bit more backstory on Sigourney Weaver's character.

After watching the film, it's time to flip over to the other two discs crammed full of stuff. Start with even more movie to watch: 45 deleted/extended scenes totaling 67 minutes of screen time. If for no other reason, they're interesting to watch for the various levels of completion of the special effects combining live action, motion capture performances and CGI.

A making-of documentary runs 98 minutes, tracking Cameron's first thoughts about making "Avatar" even before he started shooting "Titanic." Cameron says the idea for the fantastic world of Pandora didn't come from any single spark of creation, but an entire childhood filled with a fascination with nature, coupled with an adult's fondness for art and science fiction.

Then there are production videos: Animatics, conceptual videos and early versions of the story told in comic-book style. That's another 84 minutes right there. There's also a 20-minute long feature "A Message from Pandora," which is essentially Cameron's personal plea for conservation of the environment.

The centerpiece of disc three is "Opening Pandora's Box," which includes 68 minutes worth of the most CG-heavy scenes. By clicking buttons on your player's remote, you can instantly shift the view to see how the scenes were put together one layer of animation at a time.

Seventeen production shorts running a few minutes each touch on every topic imaginable, from stunts to music to costumes. I was astonished to learn that Cameron had actual copies of every piece of clothing worn by the Na'vi manufactured for real, and even dressed actors tinted blue for video capture. (The skimpy Na'vi outfits somehow look even more daring on real humans.)

There are also hundreds of production still photographs, a copy of Cameron's original screenplay, and even "Pandorapedia" -- an encyclopedic description of Pandora, its inhabitants and interconnected ecosystem. It's 449 pages long!

I might quibble about the lack of a commentary track, but frankly with this astonishing amount of material I'm not sure what else Cameron would have to add.

One genuine criticism: For some reason, the Extended Collector's Edition does not include a digital copy of the film for loading on portable devices. This was actually the only extra included on the original video release of "Avatar," so to exclude it here is puzzling indeed.

Perhaps we'll have to wait for the Super Special Limited Director's Cut to get that thrown in.

Movie: 3.5 stars out of four
Extras: 4 stars

Reeling Backward: "Aliens" (1986)

"Aliens" holds a special place in my heart. It was around its release in 1986 that my love of movies escalated from a childhood fascination into a lifelong passion. Not coincidentally, that was also the summer I got my first official job -- at a movie theater, not surprisingly.

This was in the day when popular movies would hang around in cinemas longer than two weekends, and I remember we were still selling plenty of tickets for "Aliens" in its six month. This also gave me an opportunity to watch the movie over and over again, and learn to anticipate the audience's reaction to the various frights and laughs (and yes, there are plenty of them).

Conservatively, I've seen the movie at least 100 times, but not for a few years. I decided to pop it into my player and see how it looked on my new LED TV.

The film holds up really well in terms of the characters, the suspense and the ultra-creepy alien creatures -- which are so black and spider-like, they seem less like organisms than null space brought to life.

I was surprised to realize that some of the special effects don't hold up as well -- in fact, some of the shots of the drop-ship approaching and leaving the infected planet of LV-426 look downright hokey. But don't forget, writer/director James Cameron was not yet the box office king he would become, and the studio saw fit to invest him with a budget of only $18.5 million. Even in today's dollars, that's less than $37 million -- peanuts by summer-movie standards.

It's interesting that the film, a sequel to Ridley Scott's 1979 atmospheric horror-film-in-space, is generally regarded as an action movie. Go through it, and you'll realize the character and dialogue scenes far outweigh the kablooey stuff.

I made some notes while watching the film. The first 30 minutes is concerned with the rescue of Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) and setting up the outbreak on LV-426. The second 30 minutes is all about establishing what ultimate badasses the Colonial Marines are, and observing their infiltration into the wrecked colony.

It's almost all suspense-building, as Cameron expertly draws out the audience's mounting anxiety. Consider this: The first full-grown alien does not appear until after the one-hour mark.

A director's cut of "Aliens" is now widely available, and for the most part I think the additional scenes add richness to the film (while ratcheting up the ratio of dialogue-to-action even higher). With one exception: There's an early scene of the colony before the aliens infested them, and it's a total disaster for the movie-watching experience.

Here's why: It shows you the colony, the people, and the beginnings of the alien encounter. In other words, LV-426 becomes a known quantity. When the Marines arrive, you have a pretty good idea of what they're getting themselves into. The movie is so much more effective when the crew shows up, and we're completely bewildered about where they are and what happened.

Anyway, the actual first encounter with the aliens lasts about 15 minutes. Then there's another 30 minutes as the survivors figure out how they're going to get off the planet, and intrigue with the corporate toady, Carter Burke (Paul Reiser), who wants to take the aliens back to Earth for military research. The last 45 minutes is the chase as Ripley's gang is picked off as they try to hot-foot it to the rescue ship, and her final showdown with the alien queen.

I still love the interaction between the marines, and how distinctive the characters are despite not a whole lot of individual screen time or dialogue. People most remember Bill Paxson as nervous-nelly Hudson, Michael Biehn as the butt-kicking Hicks, and Jenette Goldstein as the muscle-bound Vasquez. ("Have you ever been mistaken for a man?" Hudson teases her. "No ... have you?" she cracks back.)

I admit that the character of the android Bishop (Lance Henrikson) has receded in my mind's eye. I seem to remember him as being much more in the middle of things, but he spends most of the movie stuck in a lab or sent off on a mission to summon the other drop-ship. He only really has two substantive scenes: The knife trick with Hudson in the mess hall (still a hoot) and getting split in two by the alien queen in the final sequence.

Narratively, Bishop essentially acts as a red herring, making us think he'll wig out and start killing people like the android from the last movie.

Other than "Avatar," most of Cameron's films have featured female protagonists, and the feminist themes of "Aliens" are pretty plain to see. The childless Ripley gloms onto the colony orphan Newt (a terrific Carrie Henn, in her first and only film role) out of maternalistic instinct.

(In a bonus scene in the director's cut, we learn that Ripley did have a daughter, who died of old age while she spent decades wandering space in hyper-sleep.)

It's a more mature vision of the action hero, as a woman who fights for her (adopted) family rather than some testosterone-fueled need to assert dominance.

Ripley was hailed as cinema's first bona fide female action hero, and we can see her footprints in more recent films such as this summer's "Salt."

For my money, "Aliens" remains the perfect summer movie.

4 stars out of four

Video review: "Avatar"

So what kind of video release do you give the newly minted top-grossing film of all time?

One full of oodles of never-before-seen insights and peeks behind the scenes? An interactive pop-up commentary with auteur James Cameron? Exclusive interviews with the cast? Dare we imagine 3-D presentation to take advantage of all those expensive new televisions with this feature?

For "Avatar," the answers to these questions are: No, nope, uh-uh and fugeddaboutit.

The cinematic sensation is being given an absolute bare-bones video release on April 22 (to coincide with Earth Day). It's arriving with zero extras, whether you choose the DVD version or the Blu-ray/DVD combo pack (though the latter does at least include a digital copy).

Cameron is known for waiting to deliver the real goods with a special edition that usually includes a longer director's cut (see "Terminator 2," "The Abyss"). I believe that's what we can expect with "Avatar."

So if you want all the goodies a watershed film like this demands, content yourself with just renting for now.

Like "Titanic," James Cameron's other much-loved and -loathed epic, "Avatar" is a film whose flaws become more apparent after you've left the cinema. The clunky dialogue, derivative plot and downright silly sci-fi gobbledygook (Unobtainium?) tends to pile up.

But while you're in the theater, sitting there in the dark, it's a thoroughly engrossing spectacle of the first order as we witness the plight of the blue-skinned alien Na'vi and their paradise planet of Pandora, which is steadily being encroached upon by greedy humans plundering it for ore.

Whether or not that experience will translate to your living room television, with the dog barking and the kids clamoring, is a good question. I wish I could answer it for you ... but I can't. The studio declined to provide review copies prior to the release date.

(I suppose with $2.7 billion in ticket sales, they figure they don't have to spend any dough to promote it.)

My guess is that "Avatar" will diminish somewhat on the small screen. Some films -- "Lawrence of Arabia," "Ben-Hur," "Saving Private Ryan" -- need a big canvas to envelop you. But it says something that "Avatar" belongs among those titles.

Movie: 3.5 stars out of four
Extras: 1 star

Golden Globe=Oscar? Not!

"Avatar" will not win the Academy Award for Best Picture.

Write it down, set it in stone. It. Will. Not. Happen.

I say this with confidence despite the blockbuster film -- which is nearly at $500 million domestic, and $1.6 billion worldwide -- winning the Golden Globe for best drama last night.

Why? Because historically, the Golden Globes have been a poor predictor when it comes to the top award.

For Best Picture, I still say "Up in the Air" is unstoppable. And while the Globes may respect boffo box office, the Oscar voters still have enough self-respect to vote for the better film over the popular choice (most of the time).

Although I will say the supporting acting winners from last night -- Mo'Nique for "Precious" and Christoph Waltz for "Inglourious Basterds" -- will likely mirror who wins the Oscar on March 7.

Jeff Bridges winning for "Crazy Heart" is also a good bet for the Oscar. He's got some strong competition in the Best Actor category -- Colin Firth in "A Single Man" and George Clooney in "Up in the Air" -- but momentum for the four-time nominee seems to be building.

But I believe the other acting category winners in the Golden Globes won't take home the Oscar. In Robert Downey Jr.'s case, I don't think he should get a nomination for "Sherlock Holmes," which is a piece of puffery that he's not even all that good in.

Meryl Streep will get her 1,078th nomination for "Julie & Julia," and Sandra Bullock may squeak in with a nomination for "The Blind Side." But despite each winning a Golden Globe -- Streep for comedy, Bullock for drama -- Carey Mulligan from "An Education" remains the front-runner.

I also doubt James Cameron will take home the Best Director statuette. I think it's a race between Kathryn Bigelow for "The Hurt Locker" and "Up in the Air" man Jason Reitman.

"Up" winning the Golden Globe is probably an indication that it will prevail over "Fantastic Mr. Fox."

Among serious cinephiles, the Golden Globes are something of a joke. They're given out by an organization of dubious journalistic reputation that seems to exist solely for the purpose of staging the big red-carpet affair once a year.

I won't totally discount the influence of the Globes, though.

The nomination ballots for the Oscars close this Saturday, meaning there's a chance Academy voters could be influenced by Globe winners. It would be a shame if some of yesterday's winners -- I'm thinking of Bullock and Downey -- push out a more deserving nominee from the top acting categories.

But I just don't think Globe mojo will result in Oscar gold. If for no other reason, the Academy couldn't bear another spectacle of James Cameron labeling himself king of the world.

Review: "Avatar"

A critic should endeavor to go into a movie without any preconceived notions or biases. When that is not possible, they at least owe it to the reader to be honest and forthright about it. So I am compelled to say that I expected "Avatar" to be underwhelming.

Alright, let's be blunt: I really thought this movie was going to suck.

Boy, was I wrong -- wonderfully, joyously wrong. Never have I been so happy to have my expectations shattered.

Like many, I watched the trailers for "Avatar" and cringed. This is what writer/director James Cameron spent $300 million on (and by some estimates, much more) for his return to feature filmmaking after 12 years away? Never has a movie been so ill-served by its previews.

"Avatar" is epic in scope and in ambition. Cameron uses computer-generated characters and imagery not as accompaniment to live actors and sets, but as his main instrument.

This movie is visionary, a word that gets bandied about but has real weight here: This is a vision like nothing you've ever seen.

The blue-skinned aliens called Na'vi who looked so cheap and cheesy in the trailers are fleshy and corporeal (and nearly nude) in the finished film, best viewed in eye-popping 3-D. The lush forests, floating mountains and waterfalls of the world of Pandora are like a National Geographic pictorial on hallucinogens.

The story is familiar -- by my count, the third film this year portraying humans as exploiters of an alien world -- but feels fresh. The depiction of corporations as mindless mechanisms destroying in the name of greed is a common theme in Cameron's films ("Aliens," "The Abyss," "The Terminator" and its sequel).

Giovanni Ribisi plays the company flunky in charge of extracting a rare and valuable ore under Pandora's surface, even if it means displacing and killing the Na'vi. (Cameron shows some of his penchant for goofiness in naming the ore Unobtainium.) His right-hand man is the scarred, scary former Marine colonel (a terrific Stephen Lang) now commanding an army of mercenaries to do the dirty work.

Jake Sully (Sam Worthington, Hollywood's new It Boy for big-budget spectaculars) is a crippled ex-Marine whose murdered twin brother volunteered for the new Avatar program, which grows special human/Na'vi hybrid bodies controlled by humans. Since Jake has the same DNA as his sibling, he's enlisted to take over his brother's avatar.

Jake's stuck between competing interests of the colonel, who wants to use the avatars to infiltrate the Na'vi, and the chief scientist (Cameron fave Sigourney Weaver), who envisions a peaceful outreach mission.

In his avatar form, Jake meets Neytiri (Zoe Saldana), a Na'vi warrior and daughter of the clan chief (Wes Studi). She saves his blue bacon from some jungle dogs, though she's resentful of his presence and bumbling ways. But she gets a sign from the earth spirits her people worship to trust him.

The months pass, and Jake is eventually accepted into the tribe. The human bulldozers grind ever closer, however, and soon he'll have to choose loyalties.

Cameron slides easily between live action and computer-animated sequences, and while I won't overstate their success by claiming the transitions are seamless, they aren't jarring.

Some of the movie's metaphysical constructions have a dollop of hokum -- the depiction of the Na'vi as an emblem for American Indians grows stronger, and more strained, as the film progresses.

I still don't quite know what to think of the Na'vi's ability to mind-meld with flying dragons and other creatures via tiny tentacles every critter seems to have. It's like an entire world of animals outfitted with USB ports.

But quibbles aside, "Avatar" is a spectacle not to be missed. The game has changed.

3.5 stars

New "Avatar" trailer

So I am invited to a press screening tonight that I've declined to attend. Normally I try to go to all the screenings the studios offer local critics, especially press-only ones, to encourage them to keep showing them to us.

But this is for a trailer, not an entire film. The studio is trying to build hype for "Avatar," coming out in December, which is the first feature film directed by James Cameron since 1997's "Titanic." (I'm not counting his undersea IMAX film.)

The reason is simple: Reviewing a preview is an exercise in futility. Anyone who watches the trailer for "Inglourious Basterds" and then goes to the see the actual film knows that.

Heightening my puzzlement, I easily found the trailer available online, which I've embedded below. I will say that "Avatar" looks pretty amazing. But for my review of the actual movie, you'll have to wait until it comes out.

Review: "Terminator Salvation"

If you can still keep the time-space continuum for the "Terminator" franchise straight in your head, you must be a Nobel-winning astrophysicist.

With four movies now, a TV show (which was canceled on Monday) and original director James Cameron and star Arnold Schwarzenegger long departed from the scene, "Terminator Salvation" is the latest in a long line of endeavors to rejigger history's orderly march in the name of science fiction mayhem.

You'll remember that Arnie played a cyborg who travelled back from the future to kill the mother of John Connor, who would become the leader of the human resistance movement to Skynet, the machine hegemony. To fight the terminator, Connor sent a soldier named Kyle Reese, who knocked boots with mom and thus became Connor's own father.

The first movie made it very clear that the time machine was destroyed after Reese and the cyborg went through, but in subsequent iterations more and more terminators and human protectors have popped up, every one of them trying desperately to alter the future.

So in "Salvation," it is the future --- 2018, to be specific. And Skynet is now trying to change the past, by hunting down Reese, so Connor can't send him back in time to change the future, which is right now, but it might be a different now if they succeed.

Or something.

"Terminator Salvation" is the latest attempt to revive a moribund film franchise via pyrotechnics. There are so many explosions it seems the movie itself is combustible. Christian Bale, as John Connor, survives two separate helicopter crashes, two thermonuclear detonations and dozens of exploding cars, buildings and robots. One starts to expect random things to blow up during quiet dialogue scenes.

In the supporting roles, Anton Yelchin (who played Chekov in another recent franchise reboot, "Star Trek") is Kyle Reese; rapper/actor Common is Connor's right-hand man; Bryce Dallas Howard is Connor's very pregnant squeeze; Helena Bonham Carter is a Skynet flunky; and Moon Bloodgood (stage name, ya think?) is a hot pilot.

The x-factor is Marcus (Sam Worthington), a burly Aussie who we see executed in a prison in 1993. He wakes up in 2018 not knowing what happened to him, but now he has amazing physical abilities. Even a Nobel-winning astrophysicist's janitor can figure out that it's not Marcus' personality that is magnetic.

"Terminator Salvation" would operate pretty well if it was a standalone flick about humans battling robots in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. It's fast-paced and often exciting -- director Joseph McGinty Nichol (I refuse to call him by his asinine handle "McG") may be ham-handed at scenes where people just talk to each other, but the man knows how to stage action scenes.

Where the movie gets bogged down is in having to shoehorn itself into the limitations of the previous "Terminator" shows. Astute fans will be able to spot a half-dozen inconsistencies in the "Terminator" universe -- I know, because they were doing so after the screening I attended. ("Why don't the robots just kill Reese the minute they capture him?")

It's never good when your fan base knows more than you do.

2.5 stars out of four