Avatar is a number of things, many of them great, even if the film isn’t quite the cinematic game changer Hollywood moguls would have you believe (certainly no more so than director James Cameron’s previous techno-feats Terminator 2 and Titanic). As entertainment goes, it is, above all else, extremely cheesy, and whether or not one enjoys the film largely comes down to their taste for this particular brand of unrestrained earnestness. Like the similarly larger-than-life storytelling of Titanic, it is a film drunk on its own excesses, and one that much better for it.
Avatar Succeeds as an Adventure Film
Not that Avatar succeeds quite like that last highest-grosser-of-all-time (inflation unadjusted) did; it can't match Titanic's artistry or depth of feeling, instead working as an engrossing yet hermetically sealed adventure. One deliberately Bushy line of dialogue aside (courtesy of the great Stephen Lang, whose villainous turn deserved an Oscar nomination), Avatar's similarities to current American affairs are no different than any other instance of a developed nation exploiting the quote-unquote uncivilized. That the film’s pro-green ideals are read as political speaks more to the rot of mainstream politics than the film itself.
If one judges plot by originality and unpredictability, Avatar's doesn't have much going for it, but as an unpretentiously eager retelling of the familiar, it succeeds quite admirably. (Recounting the plot here seems rather trite given the generally widespread knowledge.) Dummies get hung up on the similarity to FernGully (a non-conversation that should have ended after the initial, witty trailer mash-up), ditto the parallels to Pocahontas (or rather, The New World). Avatar revels in the archetypal broadness of its story, hoping to instill itself in your mind as something of a pre-existing classic, even as it unfolds for the first time. For the most part, it works.
Let's address the three-dimensional elephant in the room: Avatar looks better at home on the flat screen than it did in theatrical 3D (this writer was one of the unlucky 15% who experienced “visual discomfort”, i.e. the worst headache of my relatively short life; I know someone who burst a blood vessel in their eye!), away from the murky visuals associated with 3D projection and nausea-inducing used of artificial focus. Why create some of the most scintillatingly detailed effects ever seen in a movie only to by and large blob them out of existence with an unnecessary gimmick? To make more money, of course. Good storytelling is truly immersive; literally immersive 3D is a hyped-up Happy Meal toy.
James Cameron Directs a Visual Masterpiece
Two-dimensionally speaking, Avatar is nearly a visual masterpiece, a Metropolis-like spectacle. Sure, it largely mimics the artwork of Roger Dean, which is another way of saying that this alien world is entrancing without being overwhelming, a pleasing quality given the difficulty of adjusting to watching photorealistic blue people scampering across the scream for nearly three hours. The life forms of Pandora are little more than slightly varied versions of numerous Earthly counterparts, yet this isn't a hindrance to the efforts on display. If the far-away world of Pandora were any more alien in design (the flora and fauna are luminescent and glow when walked upon [like the sidewalk in Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean” video], while most animals have six legs, etc.), Avatar might prove visually top-heavy for its simple trajectory; the relative recognizability of this world allows the similarly stripped-down story to function that much more effortlessly.
Like the similarly imperfect but awesome Titanic, Avatar points to Cameron’s strengths and weaknesses, the latter most prominent in perfunctory dialogue that too often hits the thematic nail on the head (and again, and again, in case you didn’t get it the first three times). Humorous touches are a frequently embarrassing spot as well (off-the-cuff humor never sounded so forced and rehearsed), but these blemishes are largely overwhelmed by capable performances that embrace the material’s B-movie pulp, lending it conviction and gravitas. F/X programmers can be thanked for much of the emotional impact (the Na’Vi are as expressive as anything put on the screen since the original Kong rampaged through New York), but Zoe Saldana and Sam Worthington’s ground work is equally game, and has sadly gone unnoticed in the wake of the film’s technical accomplishments.
Coming from a director who has routinely raised the bar on visual possibilities in the cinema and exhibits equally jaw-dropping budget-stretching abilities, Avatar can't help but pale, if only somewhat, in comparison to its meat-and-potatoes predecessors. For all the digital bravura abound, there remains more passion and feeling in the whatever-it-takes mechanics of The Terminator's threadbare makeup and piecemeal physical effects. Hype and overly zealous fans be equally damned, Avatar remains a fine, if flawed, film, one that will remain in memory less for its artistic than its technical achievements, however considerable both may be. Cameron is only arguably King of the World, but he impressively remains master of his own.
- Director: James Cameron
- Screenplay: James Cameron
- Cast: Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Sigourney Weaver, Stephen Lang, Michelle Rodriguez, Giovanni Ribisi, Joel David Moore, CCH Pounder, Wes Studi, Laz Alonso, Dileep Rao
- 162 minutes, Rated PG-13, 2009
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