Movie Review - 'Avatar'

Avatar Starring Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, and Sigourney Weaver Directed by James Cameron Rated PG-13

James Cameron is one of the few filmmakers who has the luxury not only of working at his own pace but also of waiting to work at his own pace until the available technology catches up with his imagination. He has been afforded that luxury, of course, because of Titanic, but Cameron's techno tinkering goes back years before that. You can see his handiwork in a number of films; I like to point out The Abyss, for which Cameron and his brother invented new underwater cameras, something they'd do again with the IMAX documentary, Ghosts of the Abyss. But his new film, Avatar, is easily the most ambitious film he's ever made, which automatically qualifies it to be among the most ambitious films anyone has ever made. That's the good news, or at least, it's part of the good news. Cameron wrote the script years ago and, realizing he couldn't make the film the way he wanted to, set about making a better 3-D technology to capture the new world he had created on paper. It took years, evidenced by the fact that Avatar is the first dramatic feature film Cameron has made since 1997. Most of us wouldn't even know where to begin thinking up a new world, and here is a man who not only does that - fairly compellingly - but then knows it's not enough just to dream it that way and cuts no corners bringing it to life. For that, we should be very grateful. You see, Cameron's Avatar is not an effects movie in the same way Michael Bay makes an effects movie. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen tortures our senses with pyrotechnics, layered sound effects editing and admittedly good effects. But it knows no restraint. Bigger is better. Avatar is an immersion process, and it's a world where everything goes together so seamlessly that as much wonder as it creates at the start becomes comfortable after a while. That's how good a job Cameron does with these visuals: Over time, you start to take them for granted just a little because you accept them as they are. With one exception: The natives of this far-off land, the Na'vi, still look like computer effects. They're very good effects, but to call them lifelike would be inaccurate, and that's in contrast to those things around it, from foliage to fauna. There are only two things that are likely to let anyone down here, and that's one of them. And when your film has been heralded as something that will change the way we make and look at movies, that's a pretty big factor. The movements of the Na'vi don't always look natural, the eyes are artificial, and the faces lack total detail. The other potential drawback is that the story is decent but not completely original and it's written in a more technical style than a space cowboy movie like Star Wars. And that's because Cameron has to explain so many things. It will not be remembered for its dialogue, but it's not as bad as you might have heard. As for the story itself, we've seen American soldiers becoming a part of another culture before. That's Dances with Wolves and The Last Samurai. But it's what Cameron does with it - again, that technical explanation of the world we see - that stands apart. Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), a paraplegic Marine recruited into a new military program to replace his recently deceased twin brother, wakes up from a five-year cryogenic slumber on the planet of Pandora, which the government wants to exploit for its natural resources. He has no training in the Avatar program, through which Jake will essentially "drive" the husk of a Na'vi. The real Na'vi know who the pretenders are, but through his Avatar, Jake and others like him are supposed to gain the trust of the natives by learning their ways and customs. After the trust is gained, theoretically, the flood gates open for our imperialist desires. The longer Jake stays in his Avatar, the more turned around his world becomes. He begins to empathize with the Na'vi, and even falls in love with Neytiri (Zoe Saldana), who is his first point of contact with the tribe. While the scientific arm of the Pandora experiment, led by Dr. Grace Augustine (Sigourney Weaver), has legitimate reasons to study the planet and its inhabitants, the more cruelly results-driven military and corporate factions, embodied by a slick huckster (Giovanni Ribisi) and a monolithic aging soldier (Stephen Lang), are after Pandora's uncommon resources for entire different and ultimately conflicting reasons. The inevitable battles that eventually take place in Avatar lack gusto, as if Cameron himself takes no pleasure in destroying this world he invented. But man, do they sure go on long enough. Great effects, but not much heart to it. As he did in Terminator Salvation, Worthington gains our sympathy, and it's a good quality to have for an actor. He's not flashy, he doesn't appear to have a lot of characterization at his disposal at this point in his career, but Worthington does get an audience on his side without much effort. The other performances are less textured, by and large. More than making up for that, though, is the impossible imagination of James Cameron, who has carefully given birth to something phenomenal to look at it, even if it's not always enveloping to watch. It must be said of the 3-D that it has never looked better, neither for live action nor animation. This is, of course, a mixture of that thanks to the extreme reliance on computers to bring Pandora to life. Outside of the physical drain of wearing 3-D glasses for nearly three full hours (you'll rub your eyes a couple of times), you're likely to forget all about the way you're watching Avatar. We think of 3-D in terms of how things jump out of the screen or how we want to reach into the screen to touch them, but Cameron's work never operates that way. It doesn't cheapen the 3-D, the film, or the audience. His concern is making a fuller filmgoing experience, and he's absolutely done that.

Comments

[Nick Capertina]

I saw it tonight for the midnight showing, and I just want to say that James Cameron has accomplished another masterpiece. I had my doubts, and I do have my complaints, but the film was just...wow. I couldn't believe what I was seeing.

Yeah, the Na'vi could have been a little more detailed, but honestly, I think it was the lighting that killed the real detail. If you watch the scenes where they go close up with Na'vi you can see the detail they put into the characters, its just everything was so sun bleached and reflective, even humans were. It was kind of hard to look at for a little bit in the beginning.

But I loved it, and I will see it again soon, as it does warrant atleast 2 viewings =)

[My Telescope]

Another marketing troll for this piece of junk movie bomb. Do they actually pay you to write these glowing reviews? Are you a mental patient with an internet connection?

[Frisky]

My Telescope, my guess is you haven't seen the film or you would have gone into some detail. Clearly you lack the intelligence to string together something worth reading ("piece of junk movie bomb"). On the Fourth of July do you enjoy your "pretty sky boom-boom light sparkles" too? If you follow Colin as a reviewer he has been dropping hints that he wanted to hate this movie for weeks now - hardly a "marketing troll". Sounds to me that while it's not perfect, he actually liked it. He based his opinion on actually SEEING the movie. Let me put this in simple terms for you... it appears you are a douchebag who has an Internet connection. I'm looking forward to seeing Avatar.

[Lengthy Johnson]

I like your review, it is thoughtful and respectful to the subject.

I would have liked it to contain some explanation for the four apes rating. I.e. why less than five but more than three (i.e. four). What did it lack to receive five, and is it really just above mediochre?

By the way I don't believe in quantitative ratings, but if you use them, you should explain them.

[Honz Brix]

I've only been on this site for rooughly 8 months but now i check it everyday. Just a quick thing to Lengthy Johnson, funny name btw, 4 apes is definately not a mediocre rating from Colin. My Telescope you are a retard as well because obviously if you were on here more often you would no that Colin always gives good reviews eventhough i don't always agree. Certainly he is not getting paid to write them because he has bashed plenty that were probably deserving of it. And to Colin awesome review of this movie. Very honest and alot easier to understand than some of the other ones i've read. I must go now as i am off to the 11:30 show to see this masterpiece. Been excited to see this for months and even more excited now after reading the review.

[common]

Hmmm evil military verses the spiritual ppl of a planet, doesn't sound very groundbreaking or original to me. Ands add in evil corporation....meh.

[D]

I saw it at a midnight show in IMAX 3D. While I definently enjoyed it I think I liked it more as an experience than as a film. I just don't know how it will hold up when it's viewed on a TV screen without the 3D effects necessary to get the full emersion that is so vital to truly appreciate what Cameron has done.

[Get The Big Picture]

I'll address a few things. First, I have never been paid by any producer, studio, or distributor in cash or consideration for any content I have ever written. To jump to that conclusion based on reading a review you disagree with is shallow and stupid. If I were a marketing troll, I'd get invited to more junkets. And if I were getting paid...don't you think they'd want me to not point out how much I disliked the appearance of the central characters?

I would also contend I haven't indicated that I "wanted to hate" this movie, just that I thought the hyperbole surrounding it for so many months is impossible to justify. It's that way with any movie before the fact. But if you read other movie sites - I dunno, pick a half dozen - there's enough junk out there about how "awesome" this movie has to be because it's James Cameron and all that. I'm just trying to mute expectations a little bit. It was like that last summer when Alex Billington of First Showing called David Edelstein of New York Magazine a "so-called critic" for not liking The Dark Knight, even though Billington certainly hasn't earned his own stripes in that regard and Edelstein has been a published critic for as long as Billington has drawn breath. The movie sites lean pretty solidly fanboy, and that's fine. You just won't ever get it here.

I have also said consistently that it's unfair to really judge this film based on clips and trailers because we're not seeing them in 3-D, and that is, as it happens, true. I still don't find the Na'vi that believable, but the rest of the effects are borderline mind-blowing in 3-D. That's how Cameron wants the film to play, so that's how it should be evaluated. Now, I have rejected any claim that this can do Titanic-like business, but that's hardly a criticism of the film. Those are two separate things. And I hate the song. That much is true.

Finally, I don't look at my reviews as quantitative, because I don't have a list in front of me of goals for a film to achieve, and if it doesn't do A, B, or C, then it receives a demerit. I don't look for the same things in every film, meaning if I had a quantitative approach, it wouldn't apply across the board, and in that case, what good what a quantitative review be? I liked The Proposal, for crying out loud...for what it was. But it didn't have effects like Avatar, even if the chemistry was better.

I suppose you mean, what qualities does a film need to get Five Apes, and what drops it to Four? To me, it's pretty simple: Five Apes means I wouldn't change the film very much if at all, that the film is - in my opinion - as good as it could possibly be. I don't give out many Five Ape reviews (one, originally, this year with The Hurt Locker, but upon further review of another film, it has also been upgraded to Five), but it's not because I don't want to. I just see things about most movies that don't quite hit the mark. What I don't understand is why so many critics flatten the field by giving so many things five/five or four/four. How do you know what's truly great if everything qualifies?

In Avatar, there's a number of things that drop it. The acting is so-so, the story is not terribly involving after a certain point, the dialogue is far from perfect, and it's probably 10 minutes too long in act two. The Na'vi effects honestly troubled me. I kept noticing how weak they were in comparison to everything else around them.

So why isn't it a Three Ape review? That should be clear, as well. Despite its shortcomings, which would only knock Avatar down to an average film on a bad day, the achievement simply can't be denied. If you're looking at it just from a technical standpoint, the film is a wonderland...minus those damn Na'vi. Even still, no other film I've seen comes as close to showcasing what 3-D and computer graphics can do together. It's a monumental achievement - more 2001 than Star Wars in my mind - but not, as D illustrates in his post above, the most stupendous piece of entertainment you'll ever see.