She's All Blue

So Avatar is official out today. "Oh mah gaaaawd!" I believe was the delighted scream of straight college boys across America. And while I have no intention of seeing it, I did see the trailer that played before Fantastic Mr. Fox (which I saw without running into my ex and his new boyfriend making out, but that's because I never go to matinees) - and I have to ask, does this trailer seem really familiar to anyone else?

I may not be a film buff the likes of Dawson Leery, but I'm pretty sure I've seen this one before.

So basically a group of professionals, say the government (...or a newspaper) send in one of their own to pose among a group of say, blue alien people (or high school students), to blend in, learn their secrets, all while watching every interaction from their monitor. But wouldn't you know! The agent falls in with the subjects he was supposed to be studying! He gets emotionally attached! Relationships are formed! And just when it looks like love will win out -- the big reveal: I thought you were one of us! Betrayed on Prom Night!

"You knew this would happen?"

"Everything changed..."

I'm sorry, this is Never Been Kissed, right? I'm not crazy. This is a Drew Barrymore movie, just with millions of dollars of CGI and guns. Your fast-paced action sequences may fool some boy into handing over their dollars, drooling in anticipation, but you won't fool me, James Cameron. What you've made is a girly-girl, pajamas and manicures sleepover movie in disguise. My greatest hope for the film is that when Blue Alien Girl finds out that her new boyfriend is really, gasp, just usingher, and was with the cool kids all along, she turns to him, all Rachael Leigh Cook fury and screams "Am I a bet? Am I a bet? AM I A FUCKING BET?"

-- ALEX WILBURN

Previously > New Moon Rises To The Occasion