Avatar (2009)
Grade:B+
Let’s just get this out of the way from the get-go: to say that the story of Avatar leaves a bit to be desired is to put things kindly. James Cameron’s epic follow-up to the most successful film of all time, Titanic (perhaps you saw it?), exists solely as an excuse for him to play around and develop new technologies to bring photo-realistic motion-capture animated characters to life in a completely computer-generated world. From that end, the film is a runaway success, offering frequently breathtaking views of a completely fictional world, but when you sit down and think about the story that the film tells, the overall experience is somewhat lacking.
Avatar opens in the year 2154, as Marine Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) arrives at the distant planet Pandora. Seems Pandora is home to some mineral that can be sold for a lot of money back on Earth, but the pesky native Na’vi humanoid population is finicky and doesn’t want to simply vacate their home, located over a huge deposit of “unobtanium” (the name of which I wish I was making up). An avatar program has been developed where human and Na’vi DNA are mixed, creating hybrid avatar creatures that can link symbiotically with their human counterparts; thus, humans are able to explore Pandora with creatures fully operated from the safety of a laboratory.
As this is primarily an action-adventure film, though, peaceful diplomacy does not win out, and Jake, inhabiting his deceased twin brother’s avatar, instead begins to bond with Neytiri (played beautifully in motion-capture by Zoe Saldana), the daughter of the Na’vi chief who is enlisted to teach Jake the ways of the Na’vi. As a paraplegic, Jake begins to relish the freedom of his avatar body and falls in love with Neytiri.
You can kind of see where this is all going (hint: there’s a big final battle with a lot at stake), and honestly, the story here at times feels like it was hammered out in a couple weekends because Cameron was on a due date and needed to get a draft finished. The audience is made to sit through some groan-inducing dialogue like “we’re heading straight into the flux vortex” or “there’s something really interesting going on there, biologically.” The general arc of the story, too, has been compared to everything from Dances with Wolves to Never Been Kissed, and it’s true: this script outline could be applied to any number of films we’ve seen a thousand times before.
But then again: was James Cameron revolutionizing the love story when he made Titanic? Was he revolutionizing the action sequence when the ship started sinking? Of course not. He was taking these tropes and putting them into a previously unexplored environment, using state-of-the-art technology and a huge budget to show us something we’d seen thousands of times before in a fresh way. He’s basically done that again here with Avatar. Technologically speaking, watching this film is like seeing modern film technology reach its apex. That is to say: we finally have fully-realized, photo-realistic, completely believable computer-generated environments and characters. It’s a film that makes you wonder where special effects have to go next. Even if the story was completely awful, this film would still be an important one for what it’s accomplished visually and technically.
Part of that technical achievement is ostensibly in the realm of 3D, and having seen the film both conventionally and in 3D, I will add another heaving sigh to the pile of arguments against 3D. As a collective film-going population, we have been watching films on a 2D screen for decades. The idea that a 3D film is more immersive an experience is a fallacy. Think of your favorite films: was there ever a moment where you thought, Man, I wish these people were in 3D because then I could actually buy it? No. We have our cinematic conventions because they have evolved from how we experience the art form and how we best digest the information given to us. With 3D, the glasses are a constant annoyance, the image is dimmer, the colors muted, and we are constantly reminded that we are watching a movie because the film keeps jumping from the screen at our face.
In 2D, Avatar works better, because we can sit back and let Cameron’s considerable achievements in world-building wash over us. The attention to detail here is astounding, from the flora and fauna that have all been conceived from scratch to the gorgeous colors in play on Pandora. The world is lush, believable, and unlike anything we’ve seen before (let’s ignore that Fern Gully ever happened). It’s simply credible, and that’s a great feat for a non-franchise film that Cameron conceived on his own. Credit the actors, too, who all fare pretty well in and out of the motion-capture suits. Cameron favorite Sigourney Weaver is saddled with the brunt of the bad dialogue as the lead scientist on the avatar program, so through no fault of her own she comes off a bit clunky, and Sam Worthington is just alright in the lead role, but acting honors and the MVP award go to Zoe Saldana, who is wholly convincing and bears the emotional load of the film as Neytiri, and does so in a motion-capture suit the whole time.
Ultimately, I’m reluctant to call Avatar a game-changer, as some have. It is more of a game confirmer. It does things that we’ve seen before on film about as well as they could feasibly be done. The 3D version of the film utilizes the technology well, without a hint of oh-my-God-it’s-like-it’s-flying-right-at-my-face theatrics. As aforementioned, though, it’s simply an unnecessary add-on. So much has been made of whether or not the 300 to 500 million dollar investment in making the film will pay off, and the more I mull over the film, the more I think it will stand the durability test and remain incredibly re-watchable. At the very least, the finished product looks like the money went somewhere productive. One wishes Cameron had put a smidgen more effort into wanting to tell a groundbreaking story while delivering the very best on the technical side of things.
Bottom Line:
James Cameron has delivered a flawed film that must be seen on the big screen. Spectacle wins out over story, but what a spectacle it is. Though the 3D is neat, see it in 2D if you have to choose.
© 2004-2009 Ben Waldorf. Posted December 25, 2009. IMDB