It has been the most talked about movie of the year. James Cameron, Academy-Award-winning director of Titanic, has been working on Avatar for several years, incorporating new technologies that claim to be an evolution in movie-making. So after all the talk, does it live up to the hype? Well, as far as the visuals go, it certainly does.
The film is set in the year 2154. A military mission is sent to a small world known as Pandora because they have an energy source that humans want to take. However, this planet is inhabited by a race known as the Na'vi, a very tall, blue-skinned race that lives in the forest of Pandora. The atmosphere is apparently not breathable by humans, so they must use avatars, which are basically home-grown Na'vis that can be controlled by humans through a mental link.
To control one of these avatars, Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), a paraplegic, is recruited. His mission is to find out about the Na'vi along with Grace (Sigourney Weaver), another member of the team. After nearly getting killled by the many beasts on Pandora, Jake meets Neytiri (Zoe Saldana), a local Na'vi who saves him and takes him back to her village after he has an encounter with a much smaller life forms that look like floating jellyfish, but which apparently represent a sign from their deity, Eywa.
After some difficulty fitting in, he is eventually accepted, and even begins to fall in love with Neytiri after spending so much time with her. He also comes to know a lot about the Na'vi's ways including their customs and language. Jake knows he is there for the mission, but the more time he spends with the Na'vi, the more he realizes that the mission is just wrong. However, the military still plans to push the Na'vi out of the area, whether they decide to go willingly or not.
Cameron has created a beautiful word with his vision of Pandora. The landscapes are simply enchanting to look at. The Na'vi themselves are also quite interesting creatures. They look at least ten feet tall, basically dwarfing the humans, and have amazing grace and flexibility when it comes to surviving on their home world.
The technology Cameron used has certainly made this one of the most realistically motion capture/animated films ever made. Each of the Na'vi is given their own distinct personality which we come to know throughout the epic runningtime of the film (161 minutes). Neytiri is unsure of Jake at first, but when he begins to learn their ways, she becomes accepting, and even begins to love him as much as he obviously loves her.
Jake himself is an interesting character. His motivation for helping out the military with this mission is that he has been promised an operation to fix his legs. He feels a freedom with his avatar that he doesn't get to experience in his real life. Perhaps it was this thought of having the use of his actual legs again that blinded him to the fact that the military wanted to displace (or destroy if need be) the inhabitants of the planet.
That could be it, or it could simply be a flaw in the story, which is probably the film's biggest issue. It seems so caught up in its amazing special effects that they didn't really want to spend a lot of time on the story. It's not exactly original. Many parts of the first half actually reminded me of an old animated film called Ferngully: The Last Rainforest (odd reference I know, but it's truly what I was reminded of) in which another species is being forced out of their home by bulldozers for the resources it contains.
The special effects end up trumping the story in many places. There are several spots in the middle, particularly when Jake is trying to earn the Na'vi's trust, where the story doesn't seem to move forward at all, yet we are treated to a visual feast as Jake tries to ride a beast on the ground and another in the air.
There's also the predictability of it. We know Jake will eventually figure out that what he's assisting with is wrong, therefore it's just a matter of time before he switches sides, and from there, it's not hard to figure the rest of it out. Despite this predictability though, the third act is quite a sight to behold. The big showdown is extraordinary in its details of machines, Pandora's creatures, and the Na'vi.
What Avatar basically comes down to is a story that's beautiful to watch, but a little skimpy on the story. Is this a bad thing? Depends on how much the story of a film means to you. I for one hold it very highly when ranking a film. With Avatar, while it wasn't the most original narrative, it serves the film well, even if it was merely a template for Cameron to show us this gorgeous world and its landscapes.
This film also takes advantage of 3-D to show us these landscapes of Pandora. Of the films I've had the opportunity to view in 3-D, Cameron makes the best use of it. He doesn't use it as a sight gag in which he's trying to throw something at the screen, but instead utilizes it to expand on his vision.
It truly is a lot to take in at once. Perhaps I will need to see it again to fully appreciate what Cameron has done here, and perhaps the weakness of the story will not bother me as much next time. Cameron has created an absorbing experience here. The characters and locations all come together for an experience that will make you feel as though you've been watching art. 3/4 stars.
Now playing in theaters everywhere.
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