Avatar Review
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
, Posted by Should I See It at 1:20 AM
Film: Avatar
Director: James Cameron
Starring: Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Giovanni Ribisi and Sigourney Weaver.
Plot: A paraplegic marine dispatched to the moon Pandora on a unique mission becomes torn between following his orders and protecting the world he feels is his home.
James Cameron really wants to be Peter Jackson. I mean really, really wants to be Peter Jackson. Avatar is sort of like a poor man’s Lord of the Rings, but set in the future instead of the distant past. Actually to be more accurate, it’s more like The Lord of the Rings meets Fern Gully meets The Little Mermaid. I shudder to think what The Lord of the Rings would have been like if James Cameron had got his hands on them. (I think that is the most times anyone has ever used The Lord of the Rings in one paragraph!)
For the biggest movie in the world, it is sooooooo lame. The plot…wait, what plot? I guess you can call the very fine piece string that ties the scenes together a plot. It’s essentially Pocahontas with CGI, but it doesn’t bring anything new to the story, or allegory, whatever you want to view this as.
The plot is too dumb (please forgive me for using that word, but it’s true)… it’s okay for it to be simple, but in a film with so much money and set in a world with so much potential it is seriously lacking in depth. I guess it is fitting in a film with so much CGI is driven by a story that is entirely superficial. I would have liked James Cameron to be a bit cleverer in presenting his pro-environmental, anti-colonial (not so subtle) subtext.
The opening and the third act were a bit boring. The second act, however, where most films start to get a bit lost, is where Avatar takes off. As Jake explores and begins to understand the Na’vi (the blue creatures), the film actually becomes emotionally engaging. It’s (almost) interesting when Jake becomes emotionally involved with the fate of the Na’vi.
At a mammoth 161 minutes, Avatar is too long. It could have ended at the destruction of the Home Tree (I actually thought that was the end), and that would have been a much more interesting ending. Seeing the humans being confronted with their guilt would have been very effective. As it stands, the ending is incredibly predictable and does not hold much hope for the human race.
Sam Worthington does precisely what is asked for him and that is: be the hero. My only gripe: All that money in the budget and they didn’t allow for a dialect coach for him? I’m all for and Aussie ‘making it’ in Hollywood, and I believe Worthington is very, very talented (I’ve been watching his career since I saw him in Bootmen in 2000) but his accent waivered in and out so often that it was distracting.
As for the rest of them: Zoe Saldana is very good, Sigourney Weaver was annoying and Giovanni Ribisi does his best Ari Gold impression. There’s nothing earth shattering about the performances or characters in this film.
Even though the story elements left much to be desired, I applaud the technology that was created and used in this film. The use of motion capture (or whatever it was) to create the blue creatures (or the Na’vi or the Avatars, whatever) is impressive, particularly in the capturing of the facial expressions of the actors. Some of the environments created for the film were also very pretty. Jake’s first experience of the real Pandora was full of wonder. I especially liked how things would glow for a few moments after the Na’vi touched them.
But the film as a whole left little to no impression on me. I couldn’t remember the names of the characters or the people or anything to do with the world. Anything that I have mentioned I have had to look up. I just take that as proof of how uninvolved I was with the story.
Should I See It?
Well, you probably have already seen it, so you know that Avatar is an overhyped, overblown, glorified cartoon. And that’s me being generous.
I totally agree with this. The movie was lame. Cameron really should stop writing his own dialogue for movies because he obviously isn't good at it, as we have seen with Titanic. The worst part I think is the fact that he reuses the whole "I see you" bit that was already pretty stupid from Titanic. The only positive thing to say is that the movie was action packed, Worthington was smokin' while not in his blue form, and it was entertaining to watch.