Avatar
Title: Avatar
Rating: 4/5
Genre: Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi, Animation
Starring: Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Sigourney Weaver, Michelle Rodriguez
Director: David Cameron
Out now for a week and already the fans are buzzing about the spectacular extravaganza of the popcorn-fest ‘Avatar.’ If you’ve already seen it, this probably just mentions a few little truths, but if you haven’t, well thats where things get interesting. Who better to seperate the fact from the fiction than the resident ‘blockbuster hater’ of these parts? Now, I must confess I went into this fully expecting a lot of random explosions, video game CGI and little else, and whilst I wasn’t far from the mark, the result is actually far better than I anticipated.It is the paraplegic marine Jake Sully (Worthington) who takes the centre stage as the newly recruited volunteer for the ‘Avatar’ project. Following the death of his twin brother, murdered ‘for the cash in his wallet,’ he is recruited as a substitute; each avatar designed using a mixture of the driver’s DNA and that of the local Na’vi to create a unique creature attuned to the single person. Straddling the fine line between the scientists who wish to study them and the army wanting nothing more than the destruction of their way of life to obtain the rare element ‘unobtanium’ (yes, I snorted with laughter here too), he sets off to infiltrate their camp and learn their ways only to fall in love with it, and when the tanks and gunships begin to fly in, he is left with no option but to protect his new found lease on life.
Time to get the big thing off my chest, is this original? Dont make me laugh. The plot is laughably bad, slamming the culture from ‘Apocalypto’ with the Night Elves from ‘World of Warcraft’ together to formulate a story. All the designs are pretty
much stolen from other places too; there are the helicopters from Halo, computer displays from Minority Report, wing gliders from World of Warcraft, Man/Robots from Matrix Revelations, etc, etc. Then theres the message of the horrifying destruction of the rainforests bluntly beaten over your head in a contradictory manner, the visuals showing one side only to be contradicted by the lead character who says things like ‘damn tree hugging hippy bullshit’ (paraphrasing). Not to mention the irony of using one of the most expensive and technologically advanced films ever made to err...warn us of the dangers of technological advancement. Smooth move sherlock.The script didn’t feel as though it helped the actors much either; the stern faced Dr. Grace Augustine (Weaver) clearly shown in contrast to her avatar, only to have their differences lost by the mid-point as the two sides of her merged into one. Or the superb – almost a cameo – performance of Trudy (Rodriguez), making her mark in just ten minutes filled with gloriously witty one liners and war paint. Even the brief role of Ribisi as the two dimensional evil corporate mogul who looks sad at the destruction of their way of life, as if taunting us with something to add to the cliché, biased ‘technology bad, kill kitties’ argument, with all the pigeon english grunting intended. Now don’t get me wrong, Worthington was more than likeable as the jokey fun-loving marine and the counterpart in Saldana played her part fine too, you just expect more time to be spent building up the characters of the rest of the cast so that when a death occurs – and trust me, it will – you might feel something.
From the incredibly detailed thought processes ranging from the decision to throw in a single line about the gravity being lower, the single line about the unobtanium being worth a lot (there is more on the wiki page apparently, but its a shame we couldn’t have got 30 seconds more dialogue explaining that) to the entire religion that is never more fleshed out than some wishy washy ‘spirit’ and ‘energy’ terms thrown about like some cheap fantasy RPG, playing out no differently than star wars’ idea of ‘the force,’ except this time all the jedi’s are 10ft blue kittens. The only effective plot element was the alien dialogue, despite consisting of only five hundred words and far from being ‘unlike any human language’ sounding pretty damn similar to the howls from those in Apocalypto, was effective enough in sustaining the illusion of a foreign language.You may think the three hour run time feels long but in truth it actually feels short; the first flight cut to him figuring it all out in ten seconds, and the single attempt we see of him riding a horse easily begging for a longer cut, or watching the destruction of the forests left to short snippets for the ADHD crowd. The plot I couldn’t give a crap about, he’s in these forests for three months and when he’s exploring the culture and the world around him, everything is so beautifully constructed filled with fairy tale magical lights and wonderous beings from the big to the small begging to be marvelled at. Then theres all the characters that never get the time of day so as to ‘develop’ the romance between the two main characters, which is about as believable as ‘Shrek’ in this regard.
But through all this negativity, the bad script and poor direction, lack of screen time for most of the cast and cliché romantic element, a good portion of the film comes about a ‘David Attenborough’ short of being a bizarre nature documentary, and thats precisely what makes it such an experience. Its the immense detail that has gone into the creations; watching the banshees swoop and soar like pteradactyl, the unique horses intertwining with the characters hair, even the most simplistic of shots given the utmost beauty with floating jellyfish lighting up the forest, the plants and the animals galore. Gone are the waxwork wonders of past CGI, the motion-captured
Na’vi naturally glide effortlessly through the trees, beautiful animé-esque bulbous eyes blinking as they gently sway with the wind, even down to the slight wrinkles of their porous skin and the manner they sweat, the textures and infinitesimal details; it really is breathtaking. Yes, this is a film that has cost $300 million to make, but you can see what all that money has bought and its not just some 3-dimensional joke. Its all there to immerse you in this realistic and fantastical world that he’s created, and not to throw things at you for no reason other than to make you duck; in essence, the effects have been done tastefully.Im actually surprised I liked this as much as I did, but then not only do I like animated films but I also like wildlife documentaries, and whilst the CGI is genuinely impressive it can never be as realistic as footage of an actual face. On the one hand this is just a recycled action film with a lot of money to burn, and in that regards it doesn’t hold up so well. The reason the ‘Star Wars’ and ‘Lord of the Rings’ analogies hold up is because of the immersive and detailed world, and not the story. Don’t believe the general hype, and unless you’re a fan of nature programs, don’t wait for the DVD: that’s for a film you might want to watch a second time. Instead experience it for its true virtues in full three dimensions. Besides, who hasn’t at some point fantasised about getting off with a 10 foot tall blue cat woman? Rawr!
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