Night out

In my house, January equals detox month. That means tackling those excess pounds put on over Christmas by putting in a decent attendance at the gym, sticking to a low fat diet and cutting out the booze. Of course, all this virtuousness takes a fair bit of will power, so my strategy is to avoid temptation as much as possible by ‘hibernating’. In other words, avoiding other people as much as humanly possible, especially at weekends. It’s much safer to settle in with the new DVD boxset you were given for Christmas and a nice bowl of fruit instead. With any luck your friends are all broke and on diets too, so you won’t miss out on too much.

So my nights out tend to be few and far between in January. The only thing likely to prise me off the sofa during the bleakest of winter months is a fat-free film night at the cinema (this involves taking a sharp detour round the pick ‘n’ mix and Ben & Jerrys to buy a small box of salted popcorn to share). This year it didn’t take too much persuading to get me out of the house though, as all Christmas I’d been itching to see the 3D special effects blockbuster of the moment, Avatar.

This film was a jaw dropping 15 years in the making, as the special effects technology needed to recreate James Cameron’s vision only recently evolved far enough to do it real justice. If, like me, your last experience of 3D cinema was wearing dodgy cardboard specs with blue and red lenses in the early eighties (remember Jaws 3 in 3D anyone?), then Avatar is guaranteed to blow your mind.

There are plenty of screens showing Avatar in 3D, but if you’re lucky enough to live near one of the four towns to have an IMAX screen (London, Glasgow, Birmingham or Bradford) this is truly an experience not to be missed. IMAX stands for ‘image maximum’ – the screen is super high resolution, massive and curves round so that it fills the whole of your vision. The result is to make you feel like you’re sitting right in the centre of the action and that you’re actually ‘in the film’. Not all films shown on IMAX screens are 3D, but it’s certainly the ideal medium for it. Once you put on the new Clark Kent style 3D sunglasses you’re in for a totally immersive experience.

Avatar is arguably the perfect film to showcase this technology, as when you first enter the primal forest world of Pandora, all your senses are plunged into a tropical paradise filled with breathtakingly beautiful – and distinctively alien – plants and animals. It’s ground breaking stuff and the film as a whole is an impressive feat of digital animation mixed with live action. While the world of Pandora and its creatures don’t look quite photo-real, it certainly gets closer than in any other film I’ve seen to date.

The name of the film comes from futuristic bio-technology that allows human scientists to explore the planet’s surface by bonding to alien/human hybrid bodies, or ‘avatars’, and controlling them remotely from the safety of a lab. Pandora is inhabited by a tall, athletic race of blue people called the Na’vi, who live in perfect harmony with their natural environment. Well, that is until us humans show up just in time to spoil the party.

Jake Sully, the hero of the film, is a wheelchair bound soldier drafted in to take over control of an avatar following the death of his scientist brother. Jake quickly becomes spellbound by the idyllic tribal life of the Na’vi and in particular the tribe’s rather feisty princess. Thus ensues a classic love story with a less than subtle, but rather heartwarming, environmental theme, all wrapped up in the best animation and 3D special effects you’re likely to see this year.

Amazing effects aside, Avatar tells a great tale and succeeded in keeping me captivated right to the end. This is a genuine achievement as it’s not far shy of three hours long, which is easily long enough to give me a severe case of the fidgets if the film’s not quite up to scratch.

All in all, Avatar is the perfect way to escape the winter blues for a couple of magical, colourful hours. Just brace yourself for the disappointment you’ll feel when it’s all over and you have to step back into the dull grey urbanity of our world. You’ll soon be longing to be back in Pandora – let’s just hope there’s a sequel on the way.