Last Monday was supposedly a 40 degrees Celsius day, so to escape the heat I decided to go to the cinemas and watch Avatar in 3D. I went to Grand Cinemas in Warwick and man was it packed. I wanted to park my car in the under cover car park right under the cinema, but after circling the place multiple times without finding a space, I gave up and parked further away.

After find a parking space, I was greeted by a crowded cinema where the queue to buy tickets extended all the way outside. When I go to watch a movie at the cinema, I normally plan to arrive 15 minutes or so after the advertised start time for the movie so I don't have to sit through advertising. But with the search for a parking space and waiting in a really long queue, by the time I got my ticket, 3D glasses and sat down, the movie had already started.

That was the first time I had seen a 3D movie at a cinema. I had to wear the 3D glasses on top of my own glasses, which made things a little uncomfortable. To make matters worse, the 3D glasses seemed dirty or foggy, and despite attempting to wipe them clean, I seriously contemplated ditching the 3D glasses and watching the movie without them. But in the end, I thought to myself, I paid to see it in 3D, so I will watch it in 3D. After a while, I got used to the blurriness that was caused by the 3D glasses and was able to enjoy the movie.

Around half way through the movie, the screen suddenly went black, which reminded me of a news article I read about some cinemas in Germany that were unable to play the movie because of it's DRM. But that wasn't the case, it turned out that there was a power outage in the area. A cinema staff member came in and told everyone that the movie would be back in 5 minutes. I took the 3D glasses off during that time because they felt heavy on top of my glasses. But when power was restored and the movie started again, I put the glasses back on and had to get used to the blurriness again.

Overall, the movie was ok. The storyline is very unoriginal, but the visuals were very pretty. The plot reminded me of the Disney movie Fern Gully and apparently it bears a strong resemblance to the movie Dances With Wolves, but I haven't watched that movie so I can't really judge. There were times when the plot made me want to cringe at how sappy and predictable it was, but as I said, the film was really pretty, the special effects, the scenery, the way the fantasy creatures looked so life-like, which makes me even more disappointed that the 3D glasses that I happened to pick up made things look blurry.